Parallel Universe

[TomasM]

Today, if you want to invent a new molecule or protein, you need only mail in a sequence of genes or molecules that you would like to have assembled to any one of a number of small companies that will build the molecule for you and send it to you. No questions asked.

That sounds fascinatingly dangerous. It brings the question: “Should we do it, just because we can?”

Obviously there is testing and QA but who knows what will really happen when things are released into the “wild.”

Are you referencing CRISPR?

 

[Quarkmaster]

Give me my degree!

Ya do have to do the work...

 

[Quarkmaster]

Engineers and scientists formed a union then they would run the world and be the most wealthy individuals.

A lot of these rich guys are engineers and scientists.

 

[Quarkmaster]

That sounds fascinatingly dangerous. It brings the question: “Should we do it, just because we can?”

They are doing it. I can do it. You can do it. It's 10 cents per base pair. If you order one thousand base pairs of the molecule of your desire, it'll cost you $100 plus shipping. They'll mail it right to you.

And you're right about it being "dangerous" in the sense that someone with the extreme knowledge base that is required to know what to order, how it might work and then to actually do something with the molecule (or protein) could actually do some harm. There are a rare few individuals, comparatively speaking, who could do this. This are such things as bad guys, even amongst scientists. Especially scientists with a grudge, or an axe to grind, such as myself.

But don't worry. I have no plans for world domination.

Yet.

 

[Quarkmaster]

Are you referencing CRISPR?

No. We can actually build genes from scratch now. Various proteins as well. The biggest items are the ones in demand by the corporations. The cost of this equipment is staggeringly high. So you either make money selling your product or you're finished. You can't just make fun stuff.

 

[Quarkmaster]

Actually, once you make these new gene sequences, you can use CRISPR to patch them into any DNA you like. And also, one group has built a new molecule that can patch into a DNA strand. It's interesting, but now suggests that we're no longer limited to AGCT molecules. New ones can be made that work inside the DNA molecule and will do things we never imagined inside an animal chemistry. It's exciting and scary at the same time. But it's a step towards some of my ideas about non-dependence on Oxygen to stay alive. Imagine if you could go for several days without Oxygen. Or indefinitely.

 

[TomasM]

A lot of these rich guys are engineers and scientists.

I’m not saying they don’t make good money.

I did a quick Google and the top scientist in the world was listed at 18B. That doesn’t even place him on fortune magazines top 100 richest people.

The people at the top are business people and often have a skill set that compliments their industry.

But I wasn’t really talking about individuals, I was speaking about the community as a whole. The greatest minds are usually highly unrewarded with respect to their contribution.

 

[TomasM]

It's interesting, but now suggests that we're no longer limited to AGCT molecules. New ones can be made that work inside the DNA molecule and will do things we never imagined inside an animal chemistry. It's exciting and scary at the same time.

Fascinating.

By chance, have you seen or heard of anything related to epigenetics when modifying base pairs?

Modifying a gene can give increased capacity (or reduced diminished capacity) but how things are turned on and off seems critically important.

I sometimes wonder if we have capacity in our junk DNA that can already do spectacular things but it’s turned off because we can’t handle it OR the environment works against those enhancements in a single species.

 

[Quarkmaster]

For me, one of the most fascinating things about the nature of the world is that its behaviour emerges as sufficiently stable for our own existence despite being rooted in bounded but extensive random behaviour at the micro level.

Life has emerged some five or so times on this planet. The first one we don't know how it happened. The second through fifth practically emerged after four ELE (Extiction Level Events). Our most recent ELE ended about 800 million years ago, but began around 1.8 billion years ago. That one was caused by hyperoxygination of the atmosphere by plants. There were no Oxygen breathers on the planet at that time. So the CO2 breathers overproduced Oxygen in the atmosphere, which caused the Earth to cool down, although it took some 200 million years for this to take place. For a billion years, the entire Earth was a giant snowball, on which nothing could live.

Beginning 800 million years ago, life re-emerged, and the whole cycle of life began again. This time, somewhere along the line, there was an accidental lifeform that emerged, from whatever magical process that created it, that consummed Oxygen and produced Carbon Dioxide. Along the CO2 eaters, these organisms formed a sybiotic relationship that would balance the Oxygen/CO2 content in the atmosphere.

About 600 million years ago, the first hominids came along. We were easy prey for the big-toothed animals that roamed the world. But eventually, we got smarter, and at one time, there were several races of humans on the Earth at the same time. This might have been about 160 million years ago. The Neanderthals, it's bvelieved were partly lost by mixing it up with Homo Sapiens, but the last of them were living on the coast of what is now France, and were wiped out by the cold caused by a volcano (there are names for all of these places) in what is today Indonesia.

The lesson here, is that it was a microscopic event that triggered the fourth death of our world and changed its face. Changed the universe. Changed the orbit of the Moon, changed the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. When the oceans froze, it changed the way the Earth's gravity impacted, not only the Moon, but also the Earth around the Sun, and therefore, the Sun. Of course, when the oceans can't move, it changes the rotational momentum of the Earth.

And now it's time for dinner!

 

[aeon]

The greatest minds are usually highly unrewarded with respect to their contribution.

Given the class- and race- and sex-based gatekeeping regarding education and career paths, the greatest minds, and their imagined potentials, are never recognized, realized, or rewarded in any way.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[TomasM]

Given the class- and race- and sex-based gatekeeping regarding education and career paths, the greatest minds, and their imagined potentials, are never recognized, realized, or rewarded in any way.

Cheers,
Ian

We have a long way to go as a species. Change takes time because people can only tolerate it in small doses.

I share your idealism but the older I get the more I accept reality so as not to be eternally disappointed [or angry]. If only we had a magic wand or a crystal ball. Until then we have to rely on our intuition and best judgement.

I always liked this songs by MJ with respect to change.

And this one because I seek answers to big choices. I sometimes fear my idealism because of the things I haven’t yet realized. I suppose change really evolves around our ability to trust the very things that frighten us the most.

 

[Wyote]

In a parallel universe you already made that change

 

[TomasM]

In a parallel universe you already made that change

Now that was funny. If we can only get @aeon on board with the PU concept, stand on one ruby slipper and chant, “there’s no place like home,” everything may magically transform.

I’m not holding my breath.

Reminds me of that movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

 

[aeon]

We have a long way to go as a species.

That’s assuming we know where we are and which way to go.

Change takes time because people can only tolerate it in small doses.

People are adaptive and resilient in general. They live through change just fine except to the degree they have been socialized to resist it, or have a vested interest in stasis.

See, I just agreed with you. Humans love to dwell in the comfort zone, even when it slowly kills them.

I share your idealism but the older I get the more I accept reality so as not to be eternally disappointed [or angry].

Oh sure, I accept the world as it is, and if a change is needed, I change myself. Also, I’m Gen-X, so whatever.

If only we had a magic wand or a crystal ball.

If we did, we should cast it away and dare not use it.

Until then we have to rely on our intuition and best judgement.

Indeed, and so we are “doomed.”

I sometimes fear my idealism because of the things I haven’t yet realized.

Very wise.

I suppose change really evolves around our ability to trust the very things that frighten us the most.

I suspect the things which frighten us most are related to the non integral aspects of the ego, such that those things are recognized as other, and thus in opposition or a threat.

As always, self-work and transcendence are the way forward.

As I said, we are “doomed.”

A cortex big enough to go there, but not big enough to know better.

Buckle up, buttercup!

The Pleasures of Multi-Quote,
Ian

 

[TomasM]

@aeon where’s the flowers and unicorns?

Too much truth. An edible and a box of cookies are now required.

 

[Wyote]

As I said, we are “doomed.”

A cortex big enough to go there, but not big enough to know better.

A cortex vortex, if you will

 

[Quarkmaster]

By chance, have you seen or heard of anything related to epigenetics when modifying base pairs?

Epigenetics is a whole new science all by itself. How genes are turned on or off, the last I heard, is a bit of a mystery. How one of two twins gets cancer and the other doesn't. I haven't spent much time studying it, so I couldn't tell you. However, it seems to me that modifying DNA in its various ways doesn't have much to do with epigenetics. Much of our DNA operates whether it's turned-on or not. Or maybe it's just "always on" and things go wrong when it accidentally gets turned-off. For example, our body needs to continuously produce red blood cells in order to live. That particular process seems to be "always on". However, occasionally we lose more blood than usual and maybe that process gets kicked into high gear. Or maybe it doesn't and the body recoups in the slow way. I'm sure that's been studied, but I don't know.
Epigenetics is interesting to me, but there are a lot of other things that are more interesting, and there is only so much time in a day. I've spent more time studying CRISPR-CAS9. Although, to be fair, once I realized that there is a project to identify every protein in the body, I got more interested in that. There are so many databases available to everyone, nowadays.

The Protein Atlas https://www.proteinatlas.org/
The Human Proteome Map http://humanproteomemap.org/
HPRD - Human Protein Reference Databasehttps://www.hsls.pitt.edu/obrc/index.php?page=URL1055173331



Places where you can dig up images like this, which is a simple protein. There are thousands upon thousands of these stored in databases that anyone can access.

If you know how to read this little schematic, you can uncover the secrets of human microbiology.

What might surprise you, is that, every protein molecule I've ever heard of actually performs mechanical movements. Every protein is a little robot. It's a machine. We might think that we're human and somehow different from the robots we build, but inside us are trillions of tiny little machines, all doing different things, things that need to be done in order for us to move around, to breathe, to digest, to think, to stay alive.

And every cell in your body has thousands of these tiny little machines, also running around doing things. And there are so many other questions. When do these machines get turned-on? How do they know where to go and what to do? Almost every tiny little machine performs only one function. It's designed to do that, and that only.

Today I'm still trying to get information about how the very first living thing ever came about. This is the holy grail of biology. Right now, we have only theories, but the real complication is to have something that is alive, but can also reproduce itself. Without this function, it can't exist for more than a single iteration of itself.

But over 3.8 billion years, perhaps it took many of those single iterations before one of them found a way to reproduce a part of itself. Somewhere between 4.56 Bya and 3.8 Bya, the first living thing emerged, that could reproduce itself. I believe that part took about 200 million years (the Earth needed sometime to cool down from its formation).

The problem with trying to find information about this is coming across a multiplicity of religious nuts trying to redirect you to "intelligent design" sites, and "miracles of God" and so on, and even worse than this, bringing up made-up probabilities about how impossbly improbable it was for life to form all by itself. I looked at one of them and asked myself, where did they get all of those stupid-assed numbers from? Easy - they made them up.

However, one thing that's very inherent in our DNA, and essential to our survival, is its ability to mutate. Which must be a central part of the answer to this major question.

The religionists fought us all the way on the missing link, until we found it (there wasn't one - just a common ancester). Now they're fighting us on this, especially with their misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

How do you build a molecule that can replicate itself? It has to be able to mutate.

We are so incredibly complex. It bogles the mind.

 

[aeon]

@aeon where’s the flowers and unicorns?

In my hair as I ride the magic steed.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Quarkmaster]

Google and the top scientist in the world was listed at 18B. That doesn’t even place him on fortune magazines top 100 richest people

Bill Gates started out in software engineering program, and dropped out to become the richest man in the world. He's dropped back a bit, but now it's Elon Musk, I don't recall his history, if I ever heard it, but I thought he started out as a techy type. Jeff Bezos, definitely spent many hours at his computer, perfecting his web site. Mark Zuckerberg, also a computer scientist. Sergey Brin, also a computer guy (google). Michael Dell started out in his college dorm room, building computers and selling them. His roomies complained that there were computers in the shower.

Then again, you can reach back to the 1960s and 1950s, when the first transistors came out, first Germanium transisitor invented by Shockly, Bardeen and Brittain.

Those guys got a nice Nobel Prize for that, but what happened afterwards was engineers and scientists scrabbling for a piece of this action. I don't have this history memorized, but tubes were getting replaced in consumer products faster than they could build them, and it was all engineers and scientists at the top of these companies, eventually becoming huge corporations.

Howard Hughes, once the richest man in the world, was a techy. Whether he had the degrees or not, he was down in the trenches with his engineers and mechanics, tweaking every little nut and bolt to get the best performance.

Eventually, those scientists and engineers realized that they could make more complex devices than transistors on a single chip. They figured out ways that they could interconnect devices and make gates and switches, the fundamental parts of a computer. Eventually, they came out with simple chips that could do algorythms, such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers. Business people had no clue what could be done, so they got left far behind, while engineers and scientists got rich.

Those became calculators, but there were other chips that did numerical processing, and I can't recall what they were named, even though I had one in my collection. But before there were calculators, they had figured out how to turn these devices into computers. Computers were no longer made of tubes, but then transistors and shortly after computer chips.

I had some of those in my collection too. The MC6800 and I also had an Intel 8080 chip.

There was a lot going on in Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 1980s, and new millionaires cropped up just about every day. I can assure you that none of them were accountants or businessmen.

 

[Quarkmaster]

I always wondered who INFJs get into arguments with. Each other and ENFPs.

Who knew.