Actually, his book "The Double Helix" has some fairly amusing accounts of his thoughts of Rosalind Franklin--whose X-ray crystallographic pictures determined that DNA was double helical in nature.
Yeah, except for that strain of super-bacteria you cultivated!
What's wrong with bacteria which breaks down our wasted food? I'm sure there are a lot of little kids out there who would be happy to have them around to feed their brussel sprouts to.
I don't think they are trying to imply that this is a 'single bullet theory'. If anything, they are say that environmental issues *are* a factor. As a hygenically concerned society, we're all paranoid about bugs and germs, but there are millions of bacteria that are part of our natural microflora. Our environmental surroundings help to select for the particular types of bacteria on and in us.
We all have E. coli in our gastrointestinal tracts, but certain strains secrete toxins which result in severe diarrhea and it seems that the population of developed countries are not as likely to have.
Just keep in mind also that there are genetic correlations to whether a person may be susceptible to developing colorectal cancer.
Although it appears valid how Dr. Brent is attempting to 'uncover' these novel genes, I'm not sure how much of a breakthrough this is. We have the sequences of both species and it was inevitable that an algorithm would eventually have been developed to hunt for them. There is nothing to be said about the biological relevance of his findings. Scientists will still have to conduct many experiments to determine if any of these novel genes are truly expressed let alone what the function of the gene products are, if any. Plus, I'm not sure what he means when he says that 7000 experiments will be reduced to 1500. I don't believe he has had much experience in a molecular biology lab. These findings will reduce the amount of effort biologists will exert to find the novel genes, but there is still a lot of work yet to be completed.
Biodegradable plastics have been developed for some years now, however, the ones which have been released on the market degraded into pieces which small animals (squirrels, birds, etc.) choke on and die. I'm not sure how this novel modification may change this. We solve one problem, yet create other.
Also the article doesn't go into much of the details which it referenced. The experiments which were performed used pure cultures of bacteria, which are not found in the natural environment (though will determine which bacterial strains are useful), and in liquid media flasks at 28 degrees celcius. How useful is that in rather temperate climates?
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Actually, his book "The Double Helix" has some fairly amusing accounts of his thoughts of Rosalind Franklin--whose X-ray crystallographic pictures determined that DNA was double helical in nature.
Yeah, except for that strain of super-bacteria you cultivated!
What's wrong with bacteria which breaks down our wasted food? I'm sure there are a lot of little kids out there who would be happy to have them around to feed their brussel sprouts to.
I don't think they are trying to imply that this is a 'single bullet theory'. If anything, they are say that environmental issues *are* a factor. As a hygenically concerned society, we're all paranoid about bugs and germs, but there are millions of bacteria that are part of our natural microflora. Our environmental surroundings help to select for the particular types of bacteria on and in us. We all have E. coli in our gastrointestinal tracts, but certain strains secrete toxins which result in severe diarrhea and it seems that the population of developed countries are not as likely to have. Just keep in mind also that there are genetic correlations to whether a person may be susceptible to developing colorectal cancer.
Although it appears valid how Dr. Brent is attempting to 'uncover' these novel genes, I'm not sure how much of a breakthrough this is. We have the sequences of both species and it was inevitable that an algorithm would eventually have been developed to hunt for them. There is nothing to be said about the biological relevance of his findings. Scientists will still have to conduct many experiments to determine if any of these novel genes are truly expressed let alone what the function of the gene products are, if any. Plus, I'm not sure what he means when he says that 7000 experiments will be reduced to 1500. I don't believe he has had much experience in a molecular biology lab. These findings will reduce the amount of effort biologists will exert to find the novel genes, but there is still a lot of work yet to be completed.
Sure, sure... I hear you typing in the background. :)
Biodegradable plastics have been developed for some years now, however, the ones which have been released on the market degraded into pieces which small animals (squirrels, birds, etc.) choke on and die. I'm not sure how this novel modification may change this. We solve one problem, yet create other. Also the article doesn't go into much of the details which it referenced. The experiments which were performed used pure cultures of bacteria, which are not found in the natural environment (though will determine which bacterial strains are useful), and in liquid media flasks at 28 degrees celcius. How useful is that in rather temperate climates?