Wednesday, May 07, 2014

your genes are obsolete


pacificstandard |  Today, DNA is central to modern biology, but scarcely a century ago biologists were debating whether or not genes actually existed. In his 1909 textbook on heredity, Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen coined the term gene to refer to that hereditary “something” that influences the traits of an organism, but without making a commitment to any hypothesis about what that “something” was. Just over a decade later, a prominent biologist could still note that some people viewed genes as “a convenient fiction or algebraic symbolism.”

As the century progressed, biologists came to see genes as real physical objects. They discovered that genes have a definite size, that they are linearly arrayed on chromosomes, that individual genes are responsible for specific chemical events in the cell, and that they are made of DNA and written in the language of the Genetic Code. By the time the Human Genome Project was initiated in 1988, researchers knew that a gene was a segment of DNA with a clear beginning and end and that it acted by directing the production of a particular enzyme or other molecule that did a specific job in the cell. As real things, genes are countable, and in 1999 biologists estimated that humans had “80,000 or so” of them.

Yet, when the dust from the Human Genome Project cleared, we didn’t have nearly as many genes as we thought. By the latest count, we have 20,805 conventional genes that encode enzymes and other proteins. Our inflated gene count, though, wasn’t the only casualty of the Human Genome Project. The very idea of a gene as a well-defined segment of DNA with a clear functional role has also taken a hit, and as a result, our understanding of our relationship with our genes is changing.

One major challenge to the concept of a gene is the growing evidence that many genes are shapeshifters. Instead of a well-defined segment of DNA that encodes a single protein with a clear function, we should view a gene as “a polyfunctional entity that assumes different forms under different cellular states,” according to University of Washington biologist John Stamatoyannopoulos. While researchers have long known that genes are made up of discrete subunits called “exons,” they hadn’t realized until recently the degree to which exons are assembled—like Legos—into sometimes thousands of different combinations. With new technologies, biologists are cataloging these various combinations, but in most cases they don’t know whether those combinations all serve the same function, different functions, or no function at all.

34 comments:

Vic78 said...

Here's a classic: http://youtu.be/sGArqoF0TpQ. Remember Michael Jackson saying fuck the media?

John Kurman said...

If you are expecting to hear gears grind in the pointy end of your resident Humpty Dumpty, I wouldn't hold my breath.

CNu said...

lol, after his most recent few rounds of tagging hereabouts, I went ahead and put him in time out and had forgotten about him. Since you mention it though, I've now decided to let all his prior incarnations loose so that he can hold forth with his singular enthusiasm for the Pioneer Fund peer review society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fund

umbrarchist said...

Evolution is different from climate change and vaccination.

Whether or not evolution did or did not happen cannot be changed at this point. It is only a matter of how it is taught in school.

Vaccination and climate change involve actions that people should or should not take which will certainly affect people's lives in the future.

CNu said...

On an only vaguely related note, what'd you think about the news that Countess Elizabeth Bathory and "thee blad is thee life" immortality seekers may have been on to something? Tell you what, the combination of egregious population overshoot and real and practical life extension - is going to make for some intense and fascinating conflict just around that signpost up ahead.

This morning, "free food" in the form of bagels and donuts was put out on the 10th floor of the building where I office. My next door neighbor - who has gone vegan as her new years resolution - and I watched in fascinated amazement as a large cohort of morbidly obese folk all jumped up from their desks in deep excitement and proceeded to waddle purposefully toward the elevator.

Shit was straight-up hilurious. It was one of the most Pavlovian displays I've ever personally witnessed.

Tom said...

The problem with the abio theory is that it's irrelevant. Whether oil is produced from biological materials or not, the *rate* at which it is produced is unfortunately too low to measure.


Nobody is seeing exhausted wells refilling.


Whether oil is a fossil fuel, or was produced in the Earth's core, or was deposited by our Creator, the supplies are not observed to replenish themselves in measurable amounts over a century.


It's just a red herring. People who know they're right are comfortable lying ... but that's not new data either.

CNu said...

lol, it's only irrelevant to a non-true believer such as yourself. http://youtu.be/Upyt-3cQxoQ

Why, given our advanced tunnel boring capabilities and the decades of advance work that have already been accomplished here in the homeland https://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+powered+boring+machines&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=mHJqU4_-JYOyyASUyoG4Bg&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1506&bih=758


The elect who have been saved will want to know all about the kingdom which has been prepared for them, including how much oil they'll have at their disposal, even if only to use as feedstock for advanced 3-D printing.

Tom said...

So that's not what it looks like -- a highway underpass?

ken said...

I think it matters on where you look for it; it may not matter to you as a consumer, except how the knowledge is manipulated into price gouging. Also it makes a difference on how you can control the masses by making them believe the supply is almost used up, when in reality you may not know how much is available.

Constructive_Feedback said...

CNu:

Quick diversion into politics before I make my main point.

I credit Barack Obama as one of the most skilled PROGRESSIVE POLITICIANS at handing his PROGRESSIVE BASE in history.
The reason why he delayed the "Keystone Pipeline Decision" is NOT because he is going to ultimately approve it - as I had assumed.
With THIS CLIMATE REPORT released - he can now give his base a hammer of substance to use when he rejects the pipeline.

UNFORTUNATELY the pipeline has NOTHING TO DO WITH AMERICAN CONSUMPTION OF FOSSIL FUELS.

end of segue.

*******

ALL of the CLIMATE TALK in America is laced with PARTISAN POLITICS.


The BOTTOM LINE QUESTION(s) that is not being asked is:


* ARE YOU AS AN AMERICAN WILLING TO PREEMPTIVELY DEGRADE YOUR STANDARD OF LIVING, WHICH IS PRESENTLY BROUGHT TO YOU VIA A CARBON-FUELS BASED ECONOMY - SO THAT YOU CAN WORK FOR 'CLIMATE CONSERVATISM"?


* What Is The ECONOMIC WORTH To Your PERSONAL BUDGET For You To Go Along?
(IF a "Green Fuel" costs you the equivalent of DOUBLE the cost of a unit of transportation that the same amount of gasoline afforded you - WOULD YOU AGREE to deny yourself the carbon alternative?





Now let's bring it all the way around:


1) THE MONEY IS FIAT. What appears to you to be DOUBLE is ONLY the retail effects of what the Federal Reserve managed to keep suspended in the air


2) THE CLIMATE ON THE EARTH HAS NEVER BEEN STATIC.

** If "Man" blows the top of a mountain off to get coal - is there any difference than if a volcano did the same?


** Since North America was a glacier 10,000 years ago before the ice started retreating back toward its northern source - if MAN is indeed accelerating natural processes that are always in flux anyway - CAN WE CONCLUDE THAT "MAN" is able to self-deny his own advantage?


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

IF A NATION outside of the Western Powers REFUSES to abide by global carbon mandates and continues to exceed their rationed amount - IS THIS GROUNDS FOR WAR AND AN INVASION of that nation because they have harmed people outside of their geographic borders?


Would you agree on a program of COLONIAL OPPRESSION in order to wean these people away from their destructive habits?


Why then not DO SO TODAY by allowing another nation to INVADE THE UNITED STATES - the greatest polluter per capita in the world (China is the greatest by volume - but spread nearly 1 billion more people than what the USA has)

Tom said...

First point sounds legitimate, though I think when geologists look for oil, they look first and foremost for features that have been associated with oil strikes in the past. If God has been faking up fossil forams and placing them near oil deposits -- for whatever reason -- then geologists are still doing their best to watch the right sign.


I still don't understand how telling people oil came from X rather than Y makes folks believe we're running out any quicker. I'm reluctant to even raise that issue for the second time in the same discussion, because the need to repeat such a straightforward point probably indicates that things are reaching an impasse.

CNu said...

What it really looks like at the surface levels http://youtu.be/i61nca8JAak

CNu said...

Patience Tom, patience...., aren't you interested in hearing more about the Luciferian conspiracy that's keeping God's anointed in the dark about the truth of what's really there?

CNu said...

Ground control to Major Tom...., commencing countdown engines on, check ignition, and may God's love be with you....., with only a teensy little bit of forbearance, critical mass can be observed to spontaneously jump off in an otherwise inert mass.

CNu said...

If Green Fuel is cheap and abundant, I'm ready to submit to all kinds of other privations....,

ken said...

I answered the question, it was quite obvious from my previous postings as you have noted, and likely Vic also, what my position was on global warming. Wouldn't you say that's true Tom, you and Vic already knew when he asked the question? So then Vic asks an obvious question he already knew the answer to..."So you're saying you don't believe in global warming?" Why is it my job to trot out why I don't think man is responsible for global warming, clearly it's not fringe, 80% of the meteorologist believe man is not the main driver of climate changes. So Vic asks the question which I have already shown to be a main stream conclusion in a way that he considers an anomaly.


What is wrong with asking him what his belief in global warming means to him, and why he is completely sold on the idea to the point where everyone who doesn't believe are fools?


We are here on a post where the link explains the time has come to leave the oil in the ground which to used to feed probably 60 to 75% of the world. The video is asking to depend exclusively on local growers, local merchants, and adapt first layer survival on our residential lots. How does that work when the local area floods or happens into a drought? I can understand back up food supplies, and acquiring skills to live off the land and being mechanical enough repair and devise tools to survive in a possible crisis; I happen to think we need a little bit more data then the provided "you must be a fool for not believing IN global warming" to convince the masses to leave their cars in the garage and give up their jobs and technology and adapt first level survival techniques and live off the land.

ken said...

"First point sounds legitimate, though I think when geologists look for oil, they look first and foremost for features that have been associated with oil strikes in the past."


If for instance you believe oil is from fossil fuels, you would understand the deepest fossil is around 16,000 feet, you wouldn't go lower than that looking for oil unless you concluded the area you are looking in had a great ground upheaval and turned the land over.


The predictions of course of peak oil are made with the idea the oil is from fossils. Now if we recently begin exploration deeper and find oil, doesn't that put different factors into the data that came into determining when we run out oil in the first place? And doesn't it bring up another set of issues? Let's say for instance we have a great supply of oil deep down, what can we expect to happen on the surface of the earth as we remove 85 billion times 42 gallons of liquid a day? Do we make sink holes, earth quakes, who knows, but it isn't the same set of peak oil problems necessarily.

Vic78 said...

I asked because not believing it's human caused at this point is stupid. I'm passed the point of trying to convince someone that it's real. There's a difference between a meteorologist and a climatologist.

Gbz said...

Bx, ur pna tb ba genafhofgnagvngvat GI jrngure fcbxrfzbqryf vagb "zrgrbebybtvfgf" -- vg'f lbhe cynpr!

John Kurman said...

I'd say the blood transfusions work for mice. Practically everything works for mice. Humans, who are already probably pushing the longevity envelope with the grandpa and grandma functionality. But you know, there's medicine and there's Hollywood medicine, and the immorbidity envelope has some folds and edges to press upon. You may see the stinking rich harvesting the young poor, in which case, you know, catch levels will have to be set, so as not to crash the population. The rest, candidates for carbon sequester, I suppose...

CNu said...

"catch levels"..., sweet! Elegant, multi-prong solution. Accept no substitutes!

Vic78 said...

People won't have much of a choice. Other countries are already doing that. The US will just lose a little prestige. Not the end of the world. Everybody out there singing Team America are going to be sick. http://youtu.be/IhnUgAaea4M

ken said...

"Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced,” the report continued. “Winters are generally shorter and warmer."

I am sure if we brought up the last couple of winters it would be classified as a weather incident, but then again others are thinking global warming is reaping havoc on extended winters too...

http://www.wunderground.com/news/global-warming-winters-20130328

"Millions of people in America and northern Europe are still battling snow and ice, wondering why they are being punished with bitter cold when -- officially -- spring has arrived and Earth is in the grip of global warming.
Yet some scientists, eyeing the fourth year in a row of exceptionally harsh late-winter weather in parts of Europe and North America, suggest warming is precisely the problem.
In a complex tango between ocean and atmosphere, warming is causing icy polar air to be displaced southwards, they contend.
"The linkage is becoming clearer and clearer, I think, although the science has not yet been settled," said Dim Coumou of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin.

I guess the science is now settled, global warming according to the report is making winters shorter and warmer.

These are such confusing times, over in the US we think it might be that the winters could be colder or warmer and the summers are getting different we're pretty sure, and of course in this case, it's not weather incidents or cycles, over in Germany they are trying to figure out why global warming stopped...

http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/stillstand-der-temperatur-erklaerungen-fuer-pause-der-klimaerwaermung-a-877941.html



Who knows we might be headed back to whatever the sweet spot temperature was after the global cooing period of the 70's turned into the global warming period of the 90's.

ken said...

I was surprised to see that back even in 1969 there was worry about CO2 global warming. That must of fell into the backround when global the fears of global cooling ignited in the mid to late 70's.

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/releases/jul10/56.pdf

"The process is a simple one. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has the effect of a pane of glass in a greenhouse. The C02 content is normally in a stable cycle, but recently man has begun to introduce instability through the burning of fossil fuels. At the turn of the century several persons raised the question whether this would change the temperature of the atmosphere. Over the years the hypothesis has been refined, and more evidence has corne along to support it. It is now pretty clearly agreed that the C02 content will rise 25% by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth' s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter. We have no data on Seattle."

I noticed the top question, confusing to the right to be heard with the right to be taken seriously is a good one, when would you say we should apply this to the "science consensus" of global warming? Looks like we missed this prediction without taking any real action to stop it. What missed predictions of woe and misery, and what missed increases will cause you to second guess the science consensus of global warming.

I am surprised with your ideas that capitalist desire power above wealth growth that you haven't taken on more of this scientist view....

“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another, Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” – Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

CNu said...

I am surprised with your ideas that capitalist desire power above wealth
growth that you haven't taken on more of this scientist view....


lol, why in the world would I do that? Overpopulation is the 800lb gorilla which everyone ignores, anthropogenic climate change is merely a symptom, not a cause - and the Club of Rome was quite clear about that all the way back in the 70's http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=326

And the operations analysis leading to the minimal regret population scenario is one of the cornerstones of the subrealistic oeuvre http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=minimal+regret+

One of the reasons I was so impressed with JK's prescription yesterday afternoonYou may see the stinking rich harvesting the young poor, in which case,
you know, catch levels will have to be set, so as not to crash the
population. The rest, candidates for carbon sequester, I suppose...

ken said...

"anthropogenic climate change is merely a symptom, not a cause....


I suppose you could argue you don't mean CO2 levels, but some other unknown pollutant that is causing the warming. Pretty sure we could pull up historical CO2 graphs that would show higher levels of CO2 with very small human populations (if any).

CNu said...

I'm just arguing that there's a deuterostem infestation problem and that the solution involves setting appropriate catch levels so that the highly qualified mature can begin winnowing out the teeming masses of ni ni's for our own rationally selfish benefit - while conferring to the ineducable tattoo'd and pants-sagging lives some value and significance they will not otherwise acquire or have.

It beats simply harvesting their tallow for candles and soap, skin for parchment, and the inedible meats and by-products for animal feed and fertilizer, don't you think?

CNu said...

btw - limited nuclear war remains an inevitability, one only hastened by climate change as a symptom of deuterostem overpopulation and ecological overshoot. What will then transpire during our next dark age, (which will be of indeterminate duration) largely depends on the pace of scientific development over the next decade.

"Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" - and the most advanced and competent of these humans is on the cusp of real magic, f'real. So, these pending dark ages will be a period of truly high wizardry - which includes life extension, engineered living systems, biomanufacture, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, ion-drive space travel throughout this solar system, and a host of capabilities too long to list.

In such context as this, is there really any place for an ignorantly consuming chicken for whom there's no longer a Col. Sanders to add 11 herbs and spices and pretend that there's anything special going on there?

John Kurman said...

"Limited" meaning "every single warhead deployed until you run out", right? That's the rather naive, simplistic, and laughable take I get from this Joseph George Caldwell's 1,000 warhead war is that he really doesn't have the first fucking clue despite his credentials. The only way you have 1,000 warhead limited war is if only 1,000 warheads are available to all sides. Ah, but once you take the Fenris Wolf off the chains, ALL the doors and windows get opened.

CNu said...

Given the extreme emphasis placed on reliable delivery - I believe it rather more likely that the majority of the significant actors forces get rendered inoperable by EMP and other disrupters before they can be effectively deployed. Hell, I was talking with my boss about mirvs on submarines yesterday morning and getting the stories about doing maintenance in the launch tubes and equally important, doing maintenance in the nuclear torpedo launch tubes.

nuclear torpedos..., that isht is funnier than backpack nukes.

I don't believe for a moment that the bulk of anybody's arsenal would ever be useable in an all-out exchange.

That said, I find it highly implausible that the U.S. and the Russian Federation go toe-to-toe on an existential level. I believe that conflict has been decided and that we have far more in common than not. OTOH - China and India are big honking targets - which on their present developmental trajectory - only inevitably become progressively worse adversaries, polluters, etc...., in fact, I believe China needs to be dealt with quick, fast, and in a hurry and have more or less indicated as much previously hereabouts. http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=china+nuclear

It's been decades since I participated in nuclear wargames, as in graduate-level, computer-simulated wargames for college credit, but the sad and heretofore seldom discussed truth of the matter is that as best anybody can ascertain, he who goes all out, ape-shit, first strike, spare no man, woman or child murderous crazy with his arsenal - has a very real and high probability of complete victory and nearly total annihilation of his targetted adversary. http://youtu.be/HgyjlqhiTV8

In polite company, it's wholly unexpected that anybody would ever even consider doing that, much less, run the exhaustive quantitative analysis to determine how it would work out, but work out it does and pretty doggone well.

John Kurman said...

my bad, should have read "that *can* be deployed". The ones that can be deployed can still make a hell of a mess. And when you consider that quite a few warheads (maybe not in the US arsenals, or at least not recently) can go off by *merely dropping them hard enough*, or *putting a bullet in the right place*, I'd say EMP ain't all that impressive. Keep in mind, Shrimp, the very first *portable* H-bomb at 15 megatons, would, if groundbursted on DC, have had everyone on the Eastern seaboard shitting out their intestines and dead within a week. That's Baltimore, Philly, and half of NYC just from the fallout. No, no, we've been lied to about the actual consequences, even back during the "mussed hair" era of a few hundred warheads.

CNu said...

heh, heh, heh, heh...., a modest experimental error based on flawed assumptions about Lithium 7. At 23.5 thousand pounds, that device could "hardly" be called portable. Important lessons were learned, Sakharov got a fission-fusion-fission bomb up for the Soviets a mere 3 years later, everythang's butter....,

Portable missile launch tubes don't house delivery vehicles capable of moving that much mass. Deployable and survivable weapons aren't don't have much in common with Shrimp, and, the stroboscopic ignition systems in these weapons are very much prone to EMP and other disruption.

The old gnurds are having their monthly hootenannie this coming tuesday, mebbe I'll go see them (it's been a while) and ask them their thoughts about these arcane matters.

John Kurman said...

But nukes are just the symptom aren't they? Johnny von Neumann worried about the existential threat of computers, not because they might produce super AI, but because it gave us monkeys exquisite control over material instrumentality. Your Apocalypse Kit is not only here, it's noodging you that there's an update available.

John Kurman said...

Fine, make it a W-53. Point being, transpose Shrimp's fallout map onto DC, and half the Eastern seaboard is dead as hell. One bomb. There are thousands. Initial point: no such thing as limited, unless the limit is when everyone is dead.

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