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[kuro_suna]

For anyone who missed the last time I posted this

[ChairmanPoo]

brilliant

[Vester]

But I am not play gods.

Ohh, VENTER. Carry on.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

That comic is hilarious! At first I didn't catch the entire title. I was wondering why the "beast" was a caveman in a suit. Or why the "world" was just a prop. Double-sweet!

Dang it, now it's another comic I have to archive-trawl.

[PTTG??]

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but they actually aren't doing anything all that scary.
 
All this really is is a computer-enhanced form of existing genetic modification; Previously, they would cut and paste genes from existing oraganisms chemically, locating and removing targeted genes indirectly.
 
What they've done here is take the source DNA and the gene they want to add, loaded them both up onto the computer, and cut and pasted there. The real invention here is the printer that allows the electronicly stored DNA to be produced. As such, this is really only a faster and possibly more precise way to do what we already do.
 
Now, as we all should know, DNA is not a zip document containg an entire copy of the subject. The best metaphore (be patient for spelling- I'm on explorer at the moment) I have heard is that genes are particularly vauge recipies. It will tell you to mix a cup of flour, some sugar, eggs, and water and other bits, and heat it to 350 for an hour or two. It won't tell you to mix them in a bowl, or to use a convection oven rather than a microwave or a toaster.
 
In life, the chemistry, radiation, temperature, and physical shape of the cell the DNA is in can all have effects. Mitocondria (Midiclorians except instead of giving you the force, they process sugar) come in a number of flavors. Identical twins can come out of the womb looking different, and clones even more so.
 
To quote from a respected researcher; "Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example, insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a giraffe with a trunk. There -are- no genes for trunks. What you CAN do with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals."
 
Or, to give an example we might be familiar with; genes are like seed numbers for a DF world. Used in the same copy, they'll generate similar worlds. But used in a different environment (different OS, hardware, or DF version), the result can be very different.
 
Still, great work Vester. Keep it up.

[kuro_suna]

To quote from a respected researcher; "Remember, genes are NOT blueprints. This means you can't, for example, insert "the genes for an elephant's trunk" into a giraffe and get a giraffe with a trunk. There -are- no genes for trunks. What you CAN do with genes is chemistry, since DNA codes for chemicals."

The potential is the ability to do exactly that if you made a sort of high level programming language for DNA where you could assign templates from a library of genetic code and have a computer simulation automatically figure out what sequence of chemicals are needed to make it all work together.

[Hyperturtle]

I wonder if the synthetic bacteria can promise a better way of fermenting plump helmets?

[Huesoo]

Hey guys have you noticed that the USA created the first synthethic cell and went to the moon first, I do believe that USA is THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Nice avi Huesoo. Very clever.

But the US didn't create the first organic cell, so we're still boned until we invent a time machine and go back and do that.

[Huesoo]

Sarcasm dude. I was going to go into Human Genetics (Md/Phd) but now it looks like I'll have to go to synthetic biology.

[PTTG??]

The potential is the ability to do exactly that if you made a sort of high level programming language for DNA where you could assign templates from a library of genetic code and have a computer simulation automatically figure out what sequence of chemicals are needed to make it all work together.

PAA HA HA HA HA HA
 
And what will your magic computer do when it's done simulating most of the chemical reactions in an organism's life? Including the trillions (to be modest) of potential influences in vitro?
 
They have been trying to create a blue rose for some time. The common blue pigments simply can't form in a normal rose's Ph. To get a blue rose, you have to change the Ph of the whole organism, and thus you need to change every other reaction in the life cycle. Or else you have to write a  new blue pigment that won't interfere with anything else in the cell, again having to deal with every other chemical process.
 
To get a trunked giraffe, you'd have to do that for evey new nerve fiber, new chemical pathway, new nasal hair, new neonotal growth hormone...
 
It's like trying to dictate the formation of a set of towns on a map in DF by altering the world gen seed.
 
When it comes down to it, it's probably faster to just selectively breed novel traits into existence. Selecting for roses of the correct Ph and such. It's much cheaper- you just need a greenhouse and a paintbrush, and some crazy guy to work in it for 60 years or so, and the occasional new box of litimus strips. To do it the hard way might take 40 years and fifty men, with millions of dollars of equipment, and a few hundred various experts.

[Siquo]

That's why bacteria rule. You can breed them a lot quicker.

DNA is like a DF seed. It controls not just "chemical A". That one chemical influences dozens of others in many ways, resulting in exponentially increasing complexity per added allele, all of that resulting from one single string of code.

Nevertheless, it's interesting and still not useless. You don't have to predict all chemical interactions. If you can predict those which matter, and then try those out with some different combinations, you might get something useful. Plastic-eating saltwater bacteria would be awesome, for instance.

[PTTG??]

Until the bloom and consume all the oxygen in the upper pacific.

[HideousBeing]

Haven't we had blue roses for a while now? Last I heard, they were upset that they weren't blue enough, so they went back to make them more blue.

Computing power grows very very fast, so I don't see why we couldn't eventually create a program that allowed us to create extremely obscure and worthless lifeforms.

I'll bet that we do eventually fuck up an ecosystem or create a fairly deadly disease, but hey it's FOR SCIENCE! This is really cool.

[kuro_suna]

And what will your magic computer do when it's done simulating most of the chemical reactions in an organism's life? Including the trillions (to be modest) of potential influences in vitro?
 

At the moment it would probably only work for single celled organisms but in the future its possible.

They have been trying to create a blue rose for some time. The common blue pigments simply can't form in a normal rose's Ph. To get a blue rose, you have to change the Ph of the whole organism, and thus you need to change every other reaction in the life cycle. Or else you have to write a  new blue pigment

Seems like creating a new pigment would be easy it you can transcribe a protein strand from scratch.

that won't interfere with anything else in the cell, again having to deal with every other chemical process.

The technology to simulate this already exists and is used to test drugs for side effects.

To get a trunked giraffe, you'd have to do that for evey new nerve fiber, new chemical pathway, new nasal hair, new neonotal growth hormone...

Actually the formation of nerve and blood vessels is automatic, seed cells are scatted through body tissue
and use chemical signals to find and connect to similar cells.

When it comes down to it, it's probably faster to just selectively breed novel traits into existence. Selecting for roses of the correct Ph and such. It's much cheaper- you just need a greenhouse and a paintbrush, and some crazy guy to work in it for 60 years or so, and the occasional new box of litimus strips. To do it the hard way might take 40 years and fifty men, with millions of dollars of equipment, and a few hundred various experts.

Because our knowledge of biology will never improve and computers will never be faster than they are now?