Forumchem - Forum with AI(ALICE BOT & HAL9000) and TTS

More dificult for us, more easy for you
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 12:37 pm

All times are UTC





Post new topic Reply to topic  Page 1 of 47
 [ 462 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 47  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: What Does Your Genetic Blueprint Predict?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:39 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:08 am
Posts: 1804

Genome_2_4
Want to know what your genes say about you? According to geneticists, your genes could be saying quite a lot! Your genetics may dictate, for example, what foods you like, what diseases you are prone to develop, how smart you are, and likely factor into nearly every aspect of your being. It’s no wonder that some people would like to take a peek at their personal genetic blueprint.

Three companies are now offering such services. Not only will they test
your DNA at nearly one million separate locations where the human
genome is known to vary from person to person, but they also help
clients interpret what their individual map says about their past,
present and future. However, genetics is still an imperfect science.
Your genes could indicate you have a very high risk of developing
arthritis down the road, for example, but in actuality you may never
suffer from stiff joints. Even so, scientists have been mapping out
genetic differences for some time now, and have made huge strides in
interpreting DNA. Understandably, many individuals would like to know
what they’re made of.




The company 23andMe announced its DNA testing service last month in San
Diego. You might think such a comprehensive analysis would costs
thousands, but the process is actually relatively affordable. For less
than $1,000 customers are able to learn virtually everything science
currently knows about their biological code. For those wary of needles,
you’ll be comforted to know that the DNA is retrieved conveniently and
painlessly from a home mail-in saliva test kit.




But not everyone wants to know what their DNA says about them. What if
you found out you had a high propensity for developing a rare,
incurable disease? Would you really want that kind of information
weighing down on you? You don’t have to look at all of the information
if you don’t want to, but who could resist asking such questions as: Do
I have the genes associated with longevity? Do I possess genes linked
to high intelligence? Do I have the “fat” gene, or the “skinny” gene?




Clients admit that looking into these traits can become almost an
obsession. Clients have access to their own “Gene Journal”, which
includes a visual bar chart that shows “good” genes in green and
undesirable ones in red. For example, you can see in percentages what
your chances of developing Alzheimer’s are. You may find that you are
45% less likely to develop diabetes than others, but 25% more likely to
develop heart disease. All of these differences stem from the roughly
10 million tiny variations known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or
SNPs weaved into the 23 pairs of human chromosomes (hence the name
“23andMe”) The company generates a list of their clients’ “genotypes” —
AC’s, CC’s, CT’s etc, based on which SNPs are found on the clients
collection of chromosome pairs.




It’s debatable whether knowing your likelihood of developing disease is
a good thing or not. Many argue that knowing what risk factors you face
allow you to more effectively plan preventative measures. Others say it
could needlessly cause worry, especially since scientists are discovery
new information daily, some of which contradicts previous finding. But
perhaps the biggest argument against mapping out individuals genetic
blueprint; isn’t that just the sort of thing an insurance company would
like to find out? That thought scares some. What happens when genetic
profiling goes mainstream? Could major insurance companies eventually
figure out how to legally (or illegally) peek into potential clients
profiles? For now the answer is definitely no, but who knows what could
happen in the future, especially if companies like 23andMe start
appealing to the masses? However, it is extremely likely that
legislation will continue to prevent insurance companies from
discriminating based on DNA. In the mean time, knowing what your risk
factors are may act as it’s own form of prevention insurance. Either
way you look at it, it’s a highly personal decision; do you want to
know the secrets of self, or are some things are better left
unanswered...




Posted by Rebecca Sato




Related posts:




Enhancing Evolution: Do Humans have a Moral and Ethical Duty to Improve the Human Race?
Genetic Doping: Scientists Seek To Prevent Athletes From Mutating
SuperMouse!

Are We Close to Creating Super-Mutant Humans?



Links:




So far, these are the 3 major companies offering DNA testing services immediately or in the near future:




23andMe

Mountain View, Calif.

Available now for $999

Services: genotyping 580,000 SNPs using Illumina technology; Gene
Journals reporting risk for 20 diseases and physical traits; tools for
tracing ancestry and DNA similarity with family and friends; Genome
Explorer to provide access to all data to allow customers to compare
any published study with their own genotype; will provide referrals to
genetic counselors

Online: www.23andme.com




deCODE Genetics

Reykjavik, Iceland

Available now for $985

Services: genotyping one million SNPs using Illumina technology;
deCODEme will provide risk reports for about 20 diseases and physical
traits; tools for tracing ancestry and DNA similarity with family and
friends; genetic counselors available for consultations

Online: www.decodeme.com




Navigenics

Redwood Shores, Calif.

Available in 2008 for $2,500

Services: will genotype one million SNPs using Affymetrix technology;
health Compass will provide risk reports for about a dozen diseases;
results relayed by genetic counselor

Online: www.navigenics.com/



Related stories

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17dna.html

http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-12/ff_genomics



Fuente


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: Unlocking Your Inner Fish: Science Traces DNA Back to Our Marine Origins
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:53 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 2:28 am
Posts: 1413

So_long_and_thanks_for_all_the_fish Have you ever felt like you"re really a fish?  That you love the water, you want to swim forever, that you should don an artificial tail and eat kelp for the rest of your life?  Then congratulations, you"re crazy.  But by coincidence some of your psycho-cells agree with you, hiding gene expression patterns that date back to the fish and probably beyond.



DNA is the most complicated system you"ll ever use.  Your genes are a huge collection of protein-encoding patterns: some build materials required for organs and tissues, but the vast majority of the genes are designed only to control other genes: it"s like running a PC with Windows Vista just to open Notepad.  Even the simplest task has an enormous set of operating instructions making it possible.

Toronto based Professor Hughes and colleagues have traced thousands of genes across tens of species as far afield as people, poultry and pufferfish.  They found that while the actual genes have evolved beyond (almost) all recognition, as you may notice from your inability to expand to twice your normal size as a panic reaction, the actual profiles of gene expression in critical organs are extremely similar.  You might be building a completely different heart, according to very different instructions, but there are certain steps and stages you must follow whether you"re feathered or froggy.

Pic_754591001187533810 These similarities appear to be enforced by function, not by how much the genome actually differs from species to species.  These conserved profiles were found across very varied species no matter how much their DNA appeared otherwise similar.  There are simply only so many ways you can alter the heart-construction-procedure without fatally fouling it up.

Creepily, one of the most conserved constructions is the brain - meaning that you might have more mind in common with carp than you expect.  Thanks a lot, nature: the one superhero we"re genetically equipped to be is Aquaman.

Posted by Luke McKinney

Conserved Gene Expression http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090415193249.htm


Fuente


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: The Embryonic Debate
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:55 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 2:28 am
Posts: 1413

Over the past decade or so, seeking federal funding for embryonic stem cell research has been a little like slamming one’s head into a brick wall. Funding was banned all together in 1996, and then President Bush loosened the ban slightly (some say negligibly) by allowing funding for embryonic stem cell lines created before August 2001. Yet, this past March, the barricade seemed to be crumbling when President Obama gave an executive order to remove the ban. But wait, all you stem cell researchers. Not so fast.


read more



Fuente


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: A, T, G, C and What?
PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 3:00 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 2:28 am
Posts: 1413

Turns out life has more essential building blocks to play with than previously thought: researchers at Rockefeller University have discovered a new nucleotide in the mammalian DNA code. Remember good ol" adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine? Well, the alphabet of our DNA sequence is about to receive a new letter. Meet 5-hydroxymethylcytosine; we aren"t sure what it does or where it"s located, but we know it"s important -- really important.


read more



Fuente


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: Doc: I Clone, Implant Human Embryos
PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 10:33 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:08 am
Posts: 1804
A doctor claims to have cloned human embryos and implanted them in women.



Source


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: The Taste of Science
PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:51 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:08 am
Posts: 1804

Locally sourced organic food is so passe. Meet the world"s first entirely synthetic gourmet dish. The future of haute cuisine, according to one Michelin chef, will be formed from tartaric acid, 4-O-a-glucopyranosyl-D-sorbitol, and triacylglycerol. After all, he says, sugar is just as artificial as anything else.


Also in today"s links: the taste of evolution, the taste of the Milky Way, and more.


read more



Source


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: "9 to 5": Your Genes Are Watching The Clock
PostPosted: Fri May 01, 2009 8:02 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am
Posts: 2692

9to5 If you feel that The Man is dominating you with his 9 to 5, the control reaches deeper than you think.  Geneticists have found 8, 12 and 24 hour cycles in gene activity; sure, those were in a vast army of lab mice kept in small containers, but anyone who"s worked in a cubicle farm will realize the results are directly applicable.




Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Salk Institute conducted a whole, well, we need to make a collective noun for "gigantic number of genetic analyzes" to describe it.  They analyzed thousands of genes over one hundred and fifty times, taking RNA samples from lab mice once an hour for two days.  Or more likely, they took them during the day and their grad students took them at 4 am.

The results showed time-varying expression of thousands of genes.  There were over 3,000 24-hour cycling genes in the liver alone, and these mice don"t even drink.  Such day-cycles have already been observed, but the surprise was hundreds of 12-hour cycles and more than sixty 8-hour shifts, creating the image of tiny rodent genes rushing to work on a little genetic subway.

Don"t worry, this won"t lead to a new army of gengineered überworkers (or Gattaca style-screening for people who"ll automatically do overtime) - imagining that your genes simply tell you what to do is simplistic, and a pretty weak cop-out to boot.  It would be a mistake to think this study shows eight hours as optimal for humans.  Your genes are part of the entire system that is you, with all the inputs and stresses you"re subjected to, and many gene expression patterns are reactions to your behavior, not the cause.  The scientists grew mouse liver cells in petri dishes and these "Never even squeaked" cells expressed only the automatic 24-hour cycles: they"d never seen dawn, dusk, or feeding time, so the shorter cycles were absent.

Confirming this, the scientists were able to erase one of the 12-hour peaks by changing the feeding time of the mice.  So these cycles aren"t the key to creating extra hours for humans, but they can help with a whole host of circadian sicknesses for those who need to work according to different clocks - a potential issue for longer-range astronauts.  Symptoms of circadian sicknesses can include fatigue (duh), dizziness, and Level 60 Night Elves.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Biological Basis for 8-hour Clock.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090423132952.htm


Source


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: Is Culture Coded in DNA? New Research Says "Yes"
PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 12:36 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am
Posts: 2692

Culture DNA The "Nature versus Nurture" debate just got more complicated.  (Well, even more complicated than the original "If you really think you can reduce all of biology to such a simplistic division you"re missing pretty much every point involved"  complication.)  Birds have been observed reconstructing cultural information in complete isolation, meaning that culture can be genetically encoded.




Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientists isolated a Zebra Finch, preventing it from learning the songs of its parents (and probably pissing off a bunch of PETA activists who genuinely don"t have anything better to do).  These finches are known to learn their song from elder male relatives, which is why the scientists were surprised to see the same songs emerge from a colony of these utterly isolated birds.

They didn"t get it right immediately.  The first isolated bird, cut off from its culture, emitted a cacophonous screeching about as melodious as nails being dragged down a pieces of broken blackboard which were, in turn, being dragged down an even larger blackboard.  It even tried to teach its kids the same, but they obviously thought "that sucks" (in bird) and made a few improvements.  After four generations, the original finch songs reappeared, meaning that either

a)  Cultural information can be genetically encoded or
b)  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has embarrassingly bad sound insulation.
We"re going to assume a) for now.

The implications are enormous: the encoded information wasn"t immediately available like some kind of genetic database, but as the baby birds learned and improved what they saw they were all along being guided by built-in information.  At every point, if you"ll forgive the outrageous anthropomorphization, they "thought" they were working it out for themselves while dancing to the genetic tune.  That"s the kind of thing that would make you think very seriously about free will.

Even better, imagine the interactions of such genetically-tuned tendencies with a world full of things survival never had to deal with.  The evolutionary importance of mating songs can"t be overstated, so such information being backed up in every single cell is understandable.  But what about innate tendencies like wanting to be popular or successful, interacting with technologies which can send your image far further than our cave-dwelling originators could ever imagine?

That could lead to people doing the stupidest, most self-destructive things just for the chance of a few minutes of fame and, oh, hang on.  YouTube and Reality TV just made a lot more sense to us.  And that"s scary.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Culture may be encoded in DNA http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/songbirdculture/


Fuente


Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: Space Invader -A Genetic Paradigm Shift 30-Million Years Ago Discovered
PostPosted: Fri May 15, 2009 3:24 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am
Posts: 2692

6a00d8341bf7f753ef01156f8d4572970cWe're talking about a paradigm shift because, until now, horizontal
transfer has been seen as very rare in animal species. It's actually a
lot more common than we think. It's like
a pandemic, and one that can infect species that weren't genetically or
geographically close. It's puzzling, scary almost,
"

Cédric Feschotte of the University of Texas


Foreign genetic elements have integrated themselves into the genomes of several mammalian and reptilian species via horizontal transfer, rather than by traditional vertical inheritance, according to a recent study.





Cédric Feschotte of the Univesrsity of Texas at Arlington and colleagues discovered previously uncharacterized elements of the hAT (hobo/Activator/Tam3) transposon superfamily, which they dubbed "space invaders." Feschotte says that what he calls space invader tranposons jumped sideways millions of years ago into several species by piggybacking onto a virus.


The team thinks that the hAT transposon invasion occurred about 30
million years ago and spread across at least two continents. "It's like
a pandemic, and one that can infect species that weren't genetically or
geographically close. It's puzzling, scary almost," Feschotte said in an interview with New Science.

In most organisms, genes are inherited or passed along from parent to
offspring. Lateral or horizontal transfer of genetic information, which
is central to the evolution of simple prokaryotic organisms, occurs
when non-native genetic elements incorporate themselves into a host
genome. These elements are typically delivered via viruses, circular
loops of DNA called plasmids, or transposons, which are small sequences
of mobile DNA.




The researchers discovered the elements while surveying DNA transposons
in the bushbaby, a nocturnal primate, and, after further examination,
found the invaders in other species, including rats and mice, opossum,
and the African clawed frog. Space invaders were not present, however,
in the genomes of many other vertebrate species. These infiltrations,
the authors say, are the first report of horizontal transfers of
transposons in mammalian species, and likely occurred around the same
time frame in affected species approximately 15 to 46 million years ago.




Feschotte says he expects many more reports of horizontal gene jumping.
"We're talking about a paradigm shift because, until now, horizontal
transfer has been seen as very rare in animal species. It's actually a
lot more common than we think."






It may not be a coincidence that the time of the invasion coincides
with a period in evolutionary history that saw mass mammal extinctions.
This is usually attributed to climate change, Feschotte says, but it is
not off the map to suppose that this type of invasion could contribute to
species extinction.




The hAT transposon does not occur in humans, but some 45% of our genome is of transposon origin.




Feschotte's work on the hAT transposon is the first time that a
"jumping gene" has been shown to have entered mammalian genomes, and
the first time it has been shown to do so in at around the same time,
in a range of unrelated species, in different parts of the world.



Posted by Casey Kazan.



Source

http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/abstract/158/3/949



Souce

Top
 Profile      
 
 Post subject: "Super Cells" that Eat Radiation, Grow Gasoline, Build Cities Cure Cancer -A Galaxy Classic
PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2009 8:36 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:35 am
Posts: 2692

Neurons_and_glial_cells_2 We believe multi-cellular organization is where it"s at, with our mesoderms and our Mercedes, but there are some super-powered single cells which are far more than meets the unaided eye.  We might think their mightiest power is confining us to the bathroom after an ill-advised late night snack, but having only one cell to deal with means bacteria can adapt incredibly well - and a single mutation can give rise to powers that make Professor Xavier"s wheelchair-accessible mansion look like a home for people who are good at minigolf.  Here we look at five organisms that would be called the Super-Cells, if that name wasn"t probably already taken by Michael Crichton.

1) Eat Radiation




Humans have only three responses responses to radioactive waste: pay
someone else to take it away quickly, die, or develop superpowers.
Unfortunately the last option has a vanishingly small success rate and
the tragic side-effect of utterly destroying the victims fashion
sense.  Luckily a species of bacteria with the ability to consume
uranium and other extremely antisocial wastes has been discovered by US
scientists - and as a bonus, it"s utterly impossible to make a crap
movie adaptation of a bacteria.


Geobacter sulfurreducens has already been used at the Rifle
Mills site to clear up a large amount of what the nuclear industry
calls "oops!", and what us non-radioactive humans call "a goddamn
nuclear contamination of groundwater and the Colorado river".
Following on the brave scientific tradition of not only looking a gift
horse in the mouth but sending it to the vet for a full set of dental
X-rays, some scientists suggest the metal-munching microbe could form
the basis for a bio-battery cell.  Because when you"ve fed a
superpowered organism nothing but nuclear waste for years, nothing can
go wrong with then sticking it in a box and carrying it around with you.




2) Generate Electricity




For those who prefer not to expose living creatures to nuclear
radiation (environmental activists, vets, those living in areas
threatened by Godzilla), scientists at Penn State have played microbial
matchmaker - pairing bacteria which can work together to consume
cellulose and generate electricity.  Such bio-electrical sources are
gaining momentum as attempts to find non-petroleum based power sources:
the cellulose-fuelled option is popular because of the large volumes
available, either as waste from agriculture and food processing or
harvested from renewable forests.




The production of energy from cellulose is a trick we"ve been trying to
copy from termites for a while - though the idea of basing our energy
economy on ravenous vermin would make Agent Smith shout "See!  I was
right!"  Attempts to exactly replicate the mechanism used in insect
stomachs have so far failed (and probably led to a few scientists
wondering, in the dead of night, if this is what they really expected
to be doing with their lives).  Many research efforts are now directed
at finding a more manageable version of the same process, of which this
binary design is one of the more unique.




3) Make oil without the inconvenient "millions of years" thing




In more proof that the line between being retarded or a genius is often
whether people tell you to shut up before you try something, a
geneticist and a biologist asked "Why don"t we just make more petrol?"
Before anybody could explain that you"d need a Delorean with an
extremely large trunk, and that people would get annoyed when you
started stealing animals just to dump them in a hole the cretaceous
period, George Church and Chris Somerville of San Carlos-based firm LS9
engineered a form of E. Coli which produces hydrocarbon chains with promising petrol potential.




This work provides an interesting environmentalist dilemma - on the one
hand it could eliminate the need for oil drilling altogether, but it
would also remove the current impetus to develop alternative energy
sources that don"t depend on the "burn stuff and don"t breathe the
smoke" strategy.  Not to mention that a sentence involving "E.Coli", "petrol" and "genetically engineered" may well be enough to make an eco -activists head explode on the spot.




4) Cure cancer




The thing people forget is that killing cancer is easy.  Radiation,
drugs, heat, cold, thumping it with lasers or ultrasonics or a baseball
bast, it"s just another cell and those things can"t put up much of a
fight against SCIENCE.  The problem isn"t wiping out the tumours, it"s
the NOT killing everything they"re attached to - healthy human cells
which are unfortunately even more fragile.  People have this vision of
cancer as a multi-headed chimeric hydra, a diabolical monster rearing
over a small doctor armed only with a scalpel.  The reality is a
lumberjack trying to kill one red ant among a thousand black ones he
can"t touch, and he"s only got a sledgehammer, napalm and an ICBM
missile to do it with.




Which is where clostridia step in.  A cell-sized secret agent, the
bacteria can be injected into a patient armed with cancer-fighting
genes.  As an anaerobic organism it will only replicate in low-oxygen
environments - like the clumps of dead tissue found in tumors.  There
they begin replicating and target the cancerous cells with the
therapeutic genes engineered into them by the scientists at of
Maastricht University.  Even better, these replication locations are
the very sites where more conventional chemo- and radiation-therapy are
least effective.  Whether this boon from the bacteria is coincidence,
or an attempt by the single-cell samaritan to make up for it"s
antisocial clostridian cousins which cause tetanus and botulism, isn"t
known.




5) Build a city




Superman can punch whatever threatens him, and Batman is bound to have
anticipated it, but very few individuals can react to a crisis by
turning into a goddamn city.  And those who can (Metroplex of the
Autobots and Jack Hawksmoor of the Authority) kick unreasonably large
amounts of ass.  This dynamic duo is now joined by bacterial hordes
such as the infamous E. Coli, after a research collaboration
involving Johns Hopkins University, Virginia Tech, the University of
California and Lund University.




We usually picture bacteria as solitary individuals - though since we
usually only think of them when we"re sick, we use much less printable
words.  Recent results prove that they understand Sesame Street as well
as any of us macroscale monkeys though, co-operating in times of crisis
for the good of the whole.  They form highly organized structures
called biofilms, mini-city analogs which can share food intake and
waste disposal routes for the good of the whole colony.




Medical researchers are extremely interested in studying how these
sickness-causing conurbations are formed, so that they can find better
ways of preventing planning permission and destroying those unwanted
urban zones for good.  After all, when you"re suffering from a urinary
tract infection the last thing you want to know is that every burning
sensation is a block party for your unwelcome guests.



Posted by Luke McKinney.




Links:


Eat radiation

and maybe form a battery

Generate electricity

Grow gasoline

Cure cancer

Unicellular architects


Fuente



Top
 Profile      
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  Page 1 of 47
 [ 462 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 47  Next

All times are UTC


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: mkicohegoefe, ussot and 16 guests


 
Search for:
 
Jump to:  

cron
Click me:
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 phpBB Group
Chronicles phpBB3 theme by Jakob Persson. Stone textures by Patty Herford.
With special thanks to RuneVillage

This site have 4 type of tecnology in order to convert text to speech. By default you use the vozme tecnology. In order to know the other you need to sign for.


- Privacy Policy -