Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
and intentions of RNA.
During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
>For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
>that's calling the shots.
> LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
language processor.
> Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
> and intentions of RNA.
> During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
> universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
> his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
> affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
> demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
> that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
> Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
> >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
> >that's calling the shots.
> > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
> wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
> language processor.
Rather, to give you one side of it. Later, of course, Chaz comes
out with this one:
"The raison d'etre of the gene is to make an organism that survives."
If he wants to have his cake and eat it too, that's fine by me.
Also, to set the record straight, in the above passages he's
cobbled together and removed the context. I had also put a link in to
an article entitled: When RNA Rules. Here's the TEXT of that article
(if you want to find it, Google "RNA rules" and look for 'Whitehead
Institute'. It was the sixth link when I did it.):
When RNA rules
A newly discovered class of molecules plays an astonishingly powerful
role in biology
What do newly discovered molecules called microRNAs and the Internet
have in common? Both reshaped entire fields in the past decade, says
Whitehead postdoctoral fellow Andrew Grimson.
“That’s a fairly grandiose claim for microRNAs,” acknowledges Grimson,
who studies them. “But the discovery of the widespread role of these
molecules changed the landscape of biology very quickly.”
“Labs across the world, working on a variety of biological questions,
are now integrating microRNAs into their research,” says David Bartel,
Whitehead Member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Bartel and his colleagues have helped to fuel the frenzy by
identifying hundreds of the small RNA molecules and providing
compelling evidence that they regulate the production of thousands of
proteins in plants and animals.
“Computational work has produced a very big picture of what microRNAs
are likely to be doing in a very short time,” says Nobel laureate and
MIT Institute Professor Phillip Sharp.
Until the early 1990s, no one had a clue about microRNAs, which flew
under the radar because of their tiny size. Each one contains only 21
to 24 nucleotides, or letters of the genetic alphabet, so scientists
simply missed them. Victor Ambros’s group found the first microRNA—
lin-4—in 1993 at Harvard Medical School while studying a mutation in
the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
Another Harvard researcher detected a second microRNA in 2000. One
year later, the floodgates opened with the discovery of nearly a
hundred in worms, insects and humans. At this point researchers began
calling these tiny regulatory molecules “microRNAs.”
The discoveries changed conceptions of RNA. Scientists have known for
decades that RNA molecules serve as messengers and translators,
building proteins from DNA sequences. But microRNAs determine which
DNA sequences get translated in a given cell, a responsibility once
considered the purview of proteins known as transcription factors.
MicroRNAs essentially choreograph biological ballets, helping to
determine where and when proteins can appear to perform. Thus RNA can
add “regulator” to the roles listed on its résumé.
MicroRNAs bind to messenger RNAs that code for proteins involved in
activities ranging from development to cancer, and disrupt the
production of these proteins. In humans, microRNAs regulate roughly
one-third of protein-coding genes, and that’s a conservative estimate.
Going through the genome
“This is the first discovery of a broad biological mechanism that’s
been made since genomics,” says Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp, who is
investigating how microRNAs work at MIT, where he is an Institute
Professor.
Scientists determined the scope of microRNA activity in a matter of
years by mining recently published DNA sequences. Bartel, an RNA
biochemist, and computational biologist Christopher Burge of MIT
played a leading role. They collaborated to develop computer programs
that scanned genomes to identify microRNAs and their messenger RNA
targets. Their work helped to ignite interest in microRNAs as
biologists in labs around the world realized the tiny molecules
regulate a large portion of the protein-coding genes in plant and
animal cells.
“Computational work has produced a very big picture of what microRNAs
are likely to be doing in a very short time,” says Sharp. “ “It feels
like the field is moving at warp speed,” agrees Burge, a Whitehead
Career Development Associate Professor of Biology. “Genomic approaches
have provided a number of important insights, and there has been nice
synergy with molecular and biochemical studies.”
Finding the first microRNAs
Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum, researchers in the Ambros lab, were
conducting painstaking experiments on C. elegans when they bumped into
the first microRNA.
They knew that early development of worm larvae required proper levels
of the novel protein lin-14. They also knew that something was
regulating those levels and assumed it was another protein, so they
set out to isolate the gene for that protein. The result amazed them.
The gene fell on a stretch of DNA once termed “junk” by some, a
stretch outside the protein-coding region of the chromosome. It
appeared to code for a small RNA molecule— lin-4—that somehow
regulated lin-14 levels.
The researchers wondered if lin-4 was an esoteric molecule or a
harbinger of a new class of RNAs. “We had no basis for saying that
lin-4 was part of something much broader,” says Ambros, who now works
at Dartmouth Medical School.
His lab had no luck searching for additional RNAs in the next few
years. He was thrilled when researchers in the lab of Harvard Medical
School’s Gary Ruvkun discovered another gene in C. elegans that coded
for a small RNA called let-7 in 2000. In addition to cloning let-7,
Ruvkun’s group examined the genomes of a number of other animals and
found the gene for let-7 in most of them. The study foreshadowed the
role of genomics in later research.
In 2001, Rockefeller University associate professor Thomas Tuschl
(formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Bartel lab), Ambros and Bartel
independently found dozens of additional small RNA genes in worms,
flies and humans and decided to call them microRNAs.
Leveraging genomics
Bartel realized he needed to look outside the toolbox of classical
biology. In 2001, he approached Burge—who had previously developed
algorithms to identify protein-coding genes in the human genome—and
Lee Lim, who had just completed his PhD training with Burge. The
researchers jumped at the chance to explore a new class of genes. Lim
worked jointly with the two labs to write a computer program that
could scan DNA sequences and predict microRNA genes.
He started by examining known microRNAs. Each microRNA is generated
from a piece of RNA that folds back on itself to form a structure that
resembles a hairpin. Lim scanned the genome of C. elegans for DNA
sequences that would give rise to hairpins after being transcribed
into RNA. He then looked for ways to further refine the search.
The double-stranded RNA of a hairpin is chopped and processed into a
single-stranded microRNA by proteins called Drosha and Dicer. But
apparently these proteins don’t recognize every hairpin. Lim whittled
down the list of potential microRNAs by eliminating DNA templates for
hairpins that lacked Dicer-friendly characteristics.
Lim then screened the remaining microRNA candidates by comparing the
genomic sequence of C. elegans with that of the related worm C.
briggsae. He reasoned that most of the genuine microRNAs, those
performing critical biological functions, would be conserved across
species.
Eventually, the team showed that the human genome contains more than
200 microRNA genes. “We were excited to find new microRNAs,” says
Burge. “But then the big question was—what do they do?”
This question had been largely answered in plants. Matthew Jones-
Rhoades, a graduate student in the Bartel lab, had discovered that
plant microRNAs have extensive and highly conserved pairing to plant
messenger RNAs, so he could easily identify many targets of the plant
microRNAs.
“At a time when we had about 50 plant targets, we were still in the
dark regarding which genes were targeted in animals,” says Bartel.
Benjamin Lewis, a graduate student in both the Bartel and Burge labs,
developed a second computer program to bridge this gap. He took the
sequences of known micro-RNAs, scanned animal genomes for
corresponding messenger RNA targets and, like Lim, used conservation
across species to screen the results. The goal was to find many more
conserved microRNA-mRNA pairings than would result by chance. But the
initial program failed to deliver.
The researchers then tried another twist. Previous work showed that
some microRNAs pair only partially with their mRNA targets, so the
team hypothesized that one part of each microRNA sequence might be
particularly important. They were right. Lewis hit the jackpot when he
required perfect
...
RNA has taken over from DNA as the number one interest in microbiology
over the last few years. Very small bits of RNA we couldn;t see in my
day control all kinds of cellular shit, usually to do with proteins.
I've been trying to put together something on genetics that remains
readable, but it's remained impossible to come up with something that
can get non-scientists to see the wide picture, a bit like the way
'The Cell As City' does. Chaz's attitudes on this probably need
unravelling in the same way he sometimes presents history. Roger
Penrose had a go at consciousness some time back, but ends up leaving
me in the familiar territory of 'what the furk does that mean' too
soon. One the up side Chaz - I seem to remember you run to fat as I
do - it looks like those nerks eating plant sterols in vomit-tasting
psuedo-lards like Benecol are storing the plant sterols in their
hearts and about to explode into death faster than those eating
buttered bacon!
On 22 Jul, 00:20, Pat <PatrickDHarring...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 21, 9:56 pm, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
> > and intentions of RNA.
> > During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
> > universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
> > his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
> > affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
> > demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
> > that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
> > Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
> > >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
> > >that's calling the shots.
> > > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> > I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
> > wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
> > language processor.
> Rather, to give you one side of it. Later, of course, Chaz comes
> out with this one:
> "The raison d'etre of the gene is to make an organism that survives."
> If he wants to have his cake and eat it too, that's fine by me.
> Also, to set the record straight, in the above passages he's
> cobbled together and removed the context. I had also put a link in to
> an article entitled: When RNA Rules. Here's the TEXT of that article
> (if you want to find it, Google "RNA rules" and look for 'Whitehead
> Institute'. It was the sixth link when I did it.):
> When RNA rules
> A newly discovered class of molecules plays an astonishingly powerful
> role in biology
> What do newly discovered molecules called microRNAs and the Internet
> have in common? Both reshaped entire fields in the past decade, says
> Whitehead postdoctoral fellow Andrew Grimson.
> “That’s a fairly grandiose claim for microRNAs,” acknowledges Grimson,
> who studies them. “But the discovery of the widespread role of these
> molecules changed the landscape of biology very quickly.”
> “Labs across the world, working on a variety of biological questions,
> are now integrating microRNAs into their research,” says David Bartel,
> Whitehead Member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
> Bartel and his colleagues have helped to fuel the frenzy by
> identifying hundreds of the small RNA molecules and providing
> compelling evidence that they regulate the production of thousands of
> proteins in plants and animals.
> “Computational work has produced a very big picture of what microRNAs
> are likely to be doing in a very short time,” says Nobel laureate and
> MIT Institute Professor Phillip Sharp.
> Until the early 1990s, no one had a clue about microRNAs, which flew
> under the radar because of their tiny size. Each one contains only 21
> to 24 nucleotides, or letters of the genetic alphabet, so scientists
> simply missed them. Victor Ambros’s group found the first microRNA—
> lin-4—in 1993 at Harvard Medical School while studying a mutation in
> the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
> Another Harvard researcher detected a second microRNA in 2000. One
> year later, the floodgates opened with the discovery of nearly a
> hundred in worms, insects and humans. At this point researchers began
> calling these tiny regulatory molecules “microRNAs.”
> The discoveries changed conceptions of RNA. Scientists have known for
> decades that RNA molecules serve as messengers and translators,
> building proteins from DNA sequences. But microRNAs determine which
> DNA sequences get translated in a given cell, a responsibility once
> considered the purview of proteins known as transcription factors.
> MicroRNAs essentially choreograph biological ballets, helping to
> determine where and when proteins can appear to perform. Thus RNA can
> add “regulator” to the roles listed on its résumé.
> MicroRNAs bind to messenger RNAs that code for proteins involved in
> activities ranging from development to cancer, and disrupt the
> production of these proteins. In humans, microRNAs regulate roughly
> one-third of protein-coding genes, and that’s a conservative estimate.
> Going through the genome
> “This is the first discovery of a broad biological mechanism that’s
> been made since genomics,” says Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp, who is
> investigating how microRNAs work at MIT, where he is an Institute
> Professor.
> Scientists determined the scope of microRNA activity in a matter of
> years by mining recently published DNA sequences. Bartel, an RNA
> biochemist, and computational biologist Christopher Burge of MIT
> played a leading role. They collaborated to develop computer programs
> that scanned genomes to identify microRNAs and their messenger RNA
> targets. Their work helped to ignite interest in microRNAs as
> biologists in labs around the world realized the tiny molecules
> regulate a large portion of the protein-coding genes in plant and
> animal cells.
> “Computational work has produced a very big picture of what microRNAs
> are likely to be doing in a very short time,” says Sharp. “ “It feels
> like the field is moving at warp speed,” agrees Burge, a Whitehead
> Career Development Associate Professor of Biology. “Genomic approaches
> have provided a number of important insights, and there has been nice
> synergy with molecular and biochemical studies.”
> Finding the first microRNAs
> Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum, researchers in the Ambros lab, were
> conducting painstaking experiments on C. elegans when they bumped into
> the first microRNA.
> They knew that early development of worm larvae required proper levels
> of the novel protein lin-14. They also knew that something was
> regulating those levels and assumed it was another protein, so they
> set out to isolate the gene for that protein. The result amazed them.
> The gene fell on a stretch of DNA once termed “junk” by some, a
> stretch outside the protein-coding region of the chromosome. It
> appeared to code for a small RNA molecule— lin-4—that somehow
> regulated lin-14 levels.
> The researchers wondered if lin-4 was an esoteric molecule or a
> harbinger of a new class of RNAs. “We had no basis for saying that
> lin-4 was part of something much broader,” says Ambros, who now works
> at Dartmouth Medical School.
> His lab had no luck searching for additional RNAs in the next few
> years. He was thrilled when researchers in the lab of Harvard Medical
> School’s Gary Ruvkun discovered another gene in C. elegans that coded
> for a small RNA called let-7 in 2000. In addition to cloning let-7,
> Ruvkun’s group examined the genomes of a number of other animals and
> found the gene for let-7 in most of them. The study foreshadowed the
> role of genomics in later research.
> In 2001, Rockefeller University associate professor Thomas Tuschl
> (formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Bartel lab), Ambros and Bartel
> independently found dozens of additional small RNA genes in worms,
> flies and humans and decided to call them microRNAs.
> Leveraging genomics
> Bartel realized he needed to look outside the toolbox of classical
> biology. In 2001, he approached Burge—who had previously developed
> algorithms to identify protein-coding genes in the human genome—and
> Lee Lim, who had just completed his PhD training with Burge. The
> researchers jumped at the chance to explore a new class of genes. Lim
> worked jointly with the two labs to write a computer program that
> could scan DNA sequences and predict microRNA genes.
> He started by examining known microRNAs. Each microRNA is generated
> from a piece of RNA that folds back on itself to form a structure that
> resembles a hairpin. Lim scanned the genome of C. elegans for DNA
> sequences that would give rise to hairpins after being transcribed
> into RNA. He then looked for ways to further refine the search.
> The double-stranded RNA of a hairpin is chopped and processed into a
> single-stranded microRNA by proteins called Drosha and Dicer. But
> apparently these proteins don’t recognize every hairpin. Lim whittled
> down the list of potential microRNAs by eliminating DNA templates for
> hairpins that lacked Dicer-friendly characteristics.
> Lim then screened the remaining microRNA candidates by comparing the
> genomic sequence of C. elegans with that of the related worm C.
> briggsae. He reasoned that most of the genuine microRNAs, those
> performing critical biological functions, would be conserved across
> species.
On Jul 22, 1:02 am, archytas <nwte...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> RNA has taken over from DNA as the number one interest in microbiology
> over the last few years. Very small bits of RNA we couldn;t see in my
> day control all kinds of cellular shit, usually to do with proteins.
> I've been trying to put together something on genetics that remains
> readable, but it's remained impossible to come up with something that
> can get non-scientists to see the wide picture, a bit like the way
> 'The Cell As City' does. Chaz's attitudes on this probably need
> unravelling in the same way he sometimes presents history.
All I was really pointing out is that it's RNA that is FAR more
in contron of those City Cells than DNA or, for that matter, our own
minds. And thank God for that! If I had to think about every
intracellular function, my mind would explode. I'll leave that to
those who know better; and if that's RNA, that's fine with me. It
doesn't explode my world view in the least.
>Roger
> Penrose had a go at consciousness some time back, but ends up leaving
> me in the familiar territory of 'what the furk does that mean' too
> soon.
>One the up side Chaz - I seem to remember you run to fat as I
> do - it looks like those nerks eating plant sterols in vomit-tasting
> psuedo-lards like Benecol are storing the plant sterols in their
> hearts and about to explode into death faster than those eating
> buttered bacon!
> On 22 Jul, 00:20, Pat <PatrickDHarring...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 21, 9:56 pm, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
> > > and intentions of RNA.
> > > During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
> > > universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
> > > his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
> > > affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
> > > demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
> > > that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
> > > Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
> > > >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > > > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
> > > >that's calling the shots.
> > > > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > > > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> > > I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
> > > wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
> > > language processor.
> > Rather, to give you one side of it. Later, of course, Chaz comes
> > out with this one:
> > "The raison d'etre of the gene is to make an organism that survives."
> > If he wants to have his cake and eat it too, that's fine by me.
> > Also, to set the record straight, in the above passages he's
> > cobbled together and removed the context. I had also put a link in to
> > an article entitled: When RNA Rules. Here's the TEXT of that article
> > (if you want to find it, Google "RNA rules" and look for 'Whitehead
> > Institute'. It was the sixth link when I did it.):
> > When RNA rules
> > A newly discovered class of molecules plays an astonishingly powerful
> > role in biology
> > What do newly discovered molecules called microRNAs and the Internet
> > have in common? Both reshaped entire fields in the past decade, says
> > Whitehead postdoctoral fellow Andrew Grimson.
> > “That’s a fairly grandiose claim for microRNAs,” acknowledges Grimson,
> > who studies them. “But the discovery of the widespread role of these
> > molecules changed the landscape of biology very quickly.”
> > “Labs across the world, working on a variety of biological questions,
> > are now integrating microRNAs into their research,” says David Bartel,
> > Whitehead Member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
> > Bartel and his colleagues have helped to fuel the frenzy by
> > identifying hundreds of the small RNA molecules and providing
> > compelling evidence that they regulate the production of thousands of
> > proteins in plants and animals.
> > “Computational work has produced a very big picture of what microRNAs
> > are likely to be doing in a very short time,” says Nobel laureate and
> > MIT Institute Professor Phillip Sharp.
> > Until the early 1990s, no one had a clue about microRNAs, which flew
> > under the radar because of their tiny size. Each one contains only 21
> > to 24 nucleotides, or letters of the genetic alphabet, so scientists
> > simply missed them. Victor Ambros’s group found the first microRNA—
> > lin-4—in 1993 at Harvard Medical School while studying a mutation in
> > the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
> > Another Harvard researcher detected a second microRNA in 2000. One
> > year later, the floodgates opened with the discovery of nearly a
> > hundred in worms, insects and humans. At this point researchers began
> > calling these tiny regulatory molecules “microRNAs.”
> > The discoveries changed conceptions of RNA. Scientists have known for
> > decades that RNA molecules serve as messengers and translators,
> > building proteins from DNA sequences. But microRNAs determine which
> > DNA sequences get translated in a given cell, a responsibility once
> > considered the purview of proteins known as transcription factors.
> > MicroRNAs essentially choreograph biological ballets, helping to
> > determine where and when proteins can appear to perform. Thus RNA can
> > add “regulator” to the roles listed on its résumé.
> > MicroRNAs bind to messenger RNAs that code for proteins involved in
> > activities ranging from development to cancer, and disrupt the
> > production of these proteins. In humans, microRNAs regulate roughly
> > one-third of protein-coding genes, and that’s a conservative estimate.
> > Going through the genome
> > “This is the first discovery of a broad biological mechanism that’s
> > been made since genomics,” says Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp, who is
> > investigating how microRNAs work at MIT, where he is an Institute
> > Professor.
> > Scientists determined the scope of microRNA activity in a matter of
> > years by mining recently published DNA sequences. Bartel, an RNA
> > biochemist, and computational biologist Christopher Burge of MIT
> > played a leading role. They collaborated to develop computer programs
> > that scanned genomes to identify microRNAs and their messenger RNA
> > targets. Their work helped to ignite interest in microRNAs as
> > biologists in labs around the world realized the tiny molecules
> > regulate a large portion of the protein-coding genes in plant and
> > animal cells.
> > “Computational work has produced a very big picture of what microRNAs
> > are likely to be doing in a very short time,” says Sharp. “ “It feels
> > like the field is moving at warp speed,” agrees Burge, a Whitehead
> > Career Development Associate Professor of Biology. “Genomic approaches
> > have provided a number of important insights, and there has been nice
> > synergy with molecular and biochemical studies.”
> > Finding the first microRNAs
> > Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum, researchers in the Ambros lab, were
> > conducting painstaking experiments on C. elegans when they bumped into
> > the first microRNA.
> > They knew that early development of worm larvae required proper levels
> > of the novel protein lin-14. They also knew that something was
> > regulating those levels and assumed it was another protein, so they
> > set out to isolate the gene for that protein. The result amazed them.
> > The gene fell on a stretch of DNA once termed “junk” by some, a
> > stretch outside the protein-coding region of the chromosome. It
> > appeared to code for a small RNA molecule— lin-4—that somehow
> > regulated lin-14 levels.
> > The researchers wondered if lin-4 was an esoteric molecule or a
> > harbinger of a new class of RNAs. “We had no basis for saying that
> > lin-4 was part of something much broader,” says Ambros, who now works
> > at Dartmouth Medical School.
> > His lab had no luck searching for additional RNAs in the next few
> > years. He was thrilled when researchers in the lab of Harvard Medical
> > School’s Gary Ruvkun discovered another gene in C. elegans that coded
> > for a small RNA called let-7 in 2000. In addition to cloning let-7,
> > Ruvkun’s group examined the genomes of a number of other animals and
> > found the gene for let-7 in most of them. The study foreshadowed the
> > role of genomics in later research.
> > In 2001, Rockefeller University associate professor Thomas Tuschl
> > (formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Bartel lab), Ambros and Bartel
> > independently found dozens of additional small RNA genes in worms,
> > flies and humans and decided to call them microRNAs.
> > Leveraging genomics
> > Bartel realized he needed to look outside the toolbox of classical
> > biology. In 2001, he approached Burge—who had previously developed
> > algorithms to identify protein-coding genes in the human genome—and
> > Lee Lim, who had just completed his PhD training with Burge. The
> > researchers jumped at the chance to explore a new class of genes. Lim
> > worked jointly with the two labs to write a computer program that
> > could scan DNA sequences and predict microRNA genes.
> > He started by examining known microRNAs. Each microRNA is generated
> > from a piece of RNA that folds back on itself to form a structure that
> > resembles a hairpin. Lim scanned the genome of C. elegans for DNA
> On Jul 21, 9:56 pm, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
> > and intentions of RNA.
> > During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
> > universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
> > his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
> > affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
> > demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
> > that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
> > Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
> > >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
> > >that's calling the shots.
> > > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> > I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
> > wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
> > language processor.
> Rather, to give you one side of it. Later, of course, Chaz comes
> out with this one:
> "The raison d'etre of the gene is to make an organism that survives."
> If he wants to have his cake and eat it too, that's fine by me.
Human language is geared towards teleology . That is why there is a
confusion between reason and purpose and between purpose and ends.
There are subtle nuances in context that can make those, that think
the whole of existence is teleological, misinterpret another (either
intentionally or unintentionally).
So I hope I never say what I don't mean - though I might.
Now the same question back to you.
Did you mean that "RNA is calling the shots", or "RNA might be
experimenting on us". Or did you mean to say something else?
Although I have already explained EXACTLY what I meant by raison
d'etre of genes. I will repeat that the "reason" genes survive is due
to the survival of the organisms they represent, and vice versa by the
way. This "reason" is the reason I, and evolutionary science have
noticed. It is not the "reason" or purpose of genes in themselves.
So now, in the interests of balance: let us know what you mean by:
>For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA that's calling the shots.
> LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
Please try to do it in your own words Without resorting to 5 pages of
irrelevant copy&paste.
> On Jul 22, 12:20 am, Pat <PatrickDHarring...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 21, 9:56 pm, chazwin <chazwy...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
> > > and intentions of RNA.
> > > During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
> > > universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
> > > his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
> > > affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
> > > demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
> > > that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
> > > Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
> > > >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > > > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
> > > >that's calling the shots.
> > > > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > > > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> > > I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
> > > wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
> > > language processor.
> > Rather, to give you one side of it. Later, of course, Chaz comes
> > out with this one:
> > "The raison d'etre of the gene is to make an organism that survives."
> > If he wants to have his cake and eat it too, that's fine by me.
> Human language is geared towards teleology . That is why there is a
> confusion between reason and purpose and between purpose and ends.
> There are subtle nuances in context that can make those, that think
> the whole of existence is teleological, misinterpret another (either
> intentionally or unintentionally).
> So I hope I never say what I don't mean - though I might.
> Now the same question back to you.
> Did you mean that "RNA is calling the shots", or "RNA might be
> experimenting on us". Or did you mean to say something else?
> Although I have already explained EXACTLY what I meant by raison
> d'etre of genes. I will repeat that the "reason" genes survive is due
> to the survival of the organisms they represent, and vice versa by the
> way. This "reason" is the reason I, and evolutionary science have
> noticed. It is not the "reason" or purpose of genes in themselves.
> So now, in the interests of balance: let us know what you mean by:
> >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA that's calling the shots.
> > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> Please try to do it in your own words Without resorting to 5 pages of
> irrelevant copy&paste.
OK, but I will link in a few pages.
In this one, a scientist mentions intelligent RNA in reference to
viruses. It begs the question 'why would it be different in more
complex creatures?'
So, perhaps what we humans are is viral RNA in control of
mitochondrial/bacterial machinery using DNA as a storage device at the
cellular level. And these little modified viral and bacterial bits
don't NEED to have consciousness, per se, because they're clever
enough to build us.
> > > > Here's one for Ian. He is curious about Pat's ideas on the "purpose"
> > > > and intentions of RNA.
> > > > During a conversation about teleology, I was insisting that the
> > > > universe is basically devoid of purpose, whilst Pat was pointing out
> > > > his theory that everything is connected by a vast Quantum god, and
> > > > affects the world with a string theory model, in which He is
> > > > demonstrated to be Omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It seems
> > > > that RNA is the main areas in intervention.
> > > > Some quotes to give you the fell of the discussion:
> > > > >For all we know, RNA could be using their hosts for experimenting.
> > > > > Whilst it may sound silly, we know that, at the root level, it's RNA
> > > > >that's calling the shots.
> > > > > LOL!! RNA rules. And you're living proof. I couldn't care less
> > > > > what you think, Chaz. RNA runs our machinery.
> > > > I excused myself from the discussion, thinking it to whacky, and
> > > > wanting to avoid the inevitable insults that were queueing up in my
> > > > language processor.
> > > Rather, to give you one side of it. Later, of course, Chaz comes
> > > out with this one:
> > > "The raison d'etre of the gene is to make an organism that survives."
> > > If he wants to have his cake and eat it too, that's fine by me.
> > Human language is geared towards teleology . That is why there is a
> > confusion between reason and purpose and between purpose and ends.
> > There are subtle nuances in context that can make those, that think
> > the whole of existence is teleological, misinterpret another (either
> > intentionally or unintentionally).
> > So I hope I never say what I don't mean - though I mi
