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Morse Code Used by Human Cells?

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Jan 12, 2005 09:50 PM
from the can-you-feel-them-talking dept.
Biotech News
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from several universities and drug companies in the U.K. have discovered that our cells are using Morse-like signals to switch genes on and off. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) write that this discovery may have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry. Better and more efficient drugs would only deliver the signals to our cells that will activate a desired behavior. Sounds like science fiction? Read more for other details, references and pictures."
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  • Let me guess: One more justification for hanging onto the 5WPM morse requirement, right?

  • I'll send CQ (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2005, @09:55PM (#11344382)
    to my feet in the morning, then QRO to my legs. That will allow me to get QRV and out of bed.

  • Aha! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MutantHamster (816782) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @09:55PM (#11344386) Homepage
    Human cells did it first. I knew that Morse guy was a fraud all along.

  • subliminal messages... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpardey (569633) <[j_pardey] [at] [hotmail.com]> on Wednesday January 12 2005, @09:55PM (#11344389)
    ...just got a lot more fun
  • So do cancer sells put out: ... --- ...
  • You mean DNA uses proteins to turn themselves on and off, and they behave in some sort of pattern? Oh wait...that's already been covered by biology for a long time. Perhaps I should start my own blog and report "news" that isn't new at all, sell adverts, and make a ton of money of off slashdot...
  • ....we really don't know all that much YET about biology and about how the universe works. We will someday, but as of today, science and medicine is rather "oversold", meaning we have been led to believe that it is more capable than it really is. And this story is a perfect example of that. A major signaling pathway that we were not even aware. Children at play, even still.....

    • Re:Hopefully, we will all soon realize that... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by harvardian (140312) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:20PM (#11344578)
      There's nothing in that press release to convince me that a "major signaling pathway" has been discovered. There was just an overblown analogy; no science was explained.

      And maybe you think biology is "oversold" because you don't know anything about it. Does anybody in your family take a statin (for lowering cholesterol levels)? If so, you should know that amazingly little details have been worked out about why those drugs work, down to the proteins that sit on the endoplasmic reticulum that are involved in cholesterol metabolism regulation, and the enzymes that interact with them. We know how that regulatory pathway eventually trickles down to interaction with DNA via transcription factors.

      Maybe you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you out of ignorance.
        • Right... that was his point. Everyone acknowledges that we still have a way to go... so how is science "oversold" (as you originally claimed)?

        • I agree with you on that. I just felt you were giving my profession a cheap shot based on a very shoddy press release, and had to say something.
              • The short answer is: No.

                The long answer is: People can obviously correctly grasp broad outlines. The problem is that, in mathematics anyway, the broad outline is the mathematics. This is woefully imprecise. Let's see if I can successfully clarify.

                Consider Fermat's Last theorem and the introductory exposition here [mbay.net]. Notice that to understand, in broad strokes, the content (not even the method!) of the proof, you have to understand elliptic curves, elliptic functions, zeta functions, L-functions, ga
        • Absolutely.

          I once studied genetic algorithms and I thought to myself 'hmm there are so many ways that I could implement a genetic algorithm, endless ways. I wonder how nature does it' and went on to study cell biology and genetics.

          Coming from computer science, I can tell you it was a humbling experience. We think we are so clever with our electronics and silicon chips and technology, but any living cell is far more amazingly... actually its hard to quantify in exactly what department they excel in, energy
          • "If its supposed to be like a little machine, its got to be explainable in a deterministic way. Otherwise its magic. I have no problem with magic (see my sig), but its nice if you admit to it rather than pretending its science."

            two things:
            - determinism is waaaaaaaaaaaaay outdated.
            - magic is just a word to explain things we don't understand. like god, or mother nature, or fate.

            science is not about absolutes**. anyone who got that wrong didn't pay attention during philosophy of science courses... read some
      • We also know that statins cause muscle damage, kidney damage, liver damage, heart damage (how ironic - look up statin-induced cardiomyopathy), metabolic damage and brain damage. Leaving people weak, sick, tired, forgetful, confused and dull and sometimes demented or dead.

        We know statins interfere with vital steps in producing testosterone, estrogen (good bye sex drive, etc) and other vital hormones, and deplete CoQ10, which is crucial for cellular energy metabolism.

        Yet we force these drugs down the throat

  • What they are saying (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:03PM (#11344448)
    ... --- -.-.

    S.O.C. Save Our Cells...

    From IP claims.

  • Wtf is this press release saying? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by harvardian (140312) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:05PM (#11344467)
    The number of 'dots and dashes' being used by each signal could have different purposes, all of which could be modified by a drug.

    Alright, I work in a chemical biology lab, and I don't know wtf this is supposed to mean. It's common for proteins to have their localization controlled by phosphorylation (i.e., a transcription factor, which is a protein that turns a gene on when bound to DNA, can only get into the nucleus to do its job depending on whether it's been phosphorylated or not). But what does "signal" mean in this context? The press release doesn't offer any scientific details.

    This is really just all hype until they can make a claim beyond vague analogies. So why does this make the front page of Slashdot?

    • Re:Wtf is this press release saying? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gardyloo (512791) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:12PM (#11344520)

      This is really just all hype until they can make a claim beyond vague analogies. So why does this make the front page of Slashdot?

      Because Roland posted it.
    • This is really just all hype until they can make a claim beyond vague analogies. So why does this make the front page of Slashdot?
      You're new here, aren't you?
    • From what I can glean from the information, I guess the idea is that there are certain biochemical signaling pathways which depend on the frequency pattern of a messenger molecule interacting with a target, rather than a simple off/on response. As was demonstrated by the experiment's use of tumor necrosis factor, I'd think the area where something like that would come into play would be apoptosis. The default program for your cells is "kill thyself," and that only gets changed if your cells receive signal
    • If you have access to Science it looks like some of this work was published last October. I haven't read through it properley but the abstract looks like it is the same http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306 /5696/704 [sciencemag.org]
      • Vague analogy: like mapping root-servers as opposed to studying the BIND cache of a mid-sized ISP nameserver.

        THANK YOU for putting the word "vague" in there. I consider myself a pretty major nerd, and I was about to go blow the back of my head off because I have no idea what the fuck you just said. HHOS
      • I see I should've done my homework first, but hoo the linked article sure mangled and overhyped the message. This is a very cool example of a complex network of transcriptional regulation.

        Is it too much to ask from the editors of a major website like Slashdot to point us to scholarly sources of this information? Or at least something better than the crap we got this time?

  • lame -.. ness ..- filter .... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:08PM (#11344492) Homepage Journal
    So a geneticist's lame metaphor for any "pattern of signals", Morse code, goes over a journalist's head, and makes it to the Slashdot homepage. If only we cell megacolonies were smart enough to decipher these patterns of signals, we might actually get meaningful insights into the infomechanics of DNA.
  • Is just letting that turd Roland Piquepaille get more publicity for his blog. We need a slashdot boycott of these artciles, somehow. While we can't not reply (if we do, some loser or another will just reply anyway), maybe we can drown it out with comments that are uniform enough to get Taco's attention.

    I propose everyone comment (whether at thread root or in reply) with a subject of "Stop the Roland Piquepaille assfest now!" and a body of the same. If out of 150 comments, 80 or 90 of them were these, would they not at least give it some consideration?
  • Lifes keeps things simple, but tries to build in some level of protection. Think of our protocols. Which ones succeed? Almost, always the simple stuff. Then think about the body. mostly 4 bases for DNA, same for RNA. Likewise, some 20-30 Amino Acids, from which all proteins get built. Life is nothing but simple with some very interesting glue.

  • Another Roland Piquepaille blog post? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jdgeorge (18767) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:30PM (#11344677)
    Perhaps this is a bit off-topic, but...

    Various posts have appeared recently concerning the frequent appearance of articles like this one, submitted by Roland Piquepaille, containing links to what appears to be sparsely annotated collection text and images copied from other sources.

    It appears that Roland is successfully using Slashdot to generate advertising revenue for this "blog" (which sadly seems to have marginally higher editing standards than Slashdot itself). Perhaps he should be formally added to the Slashdot staff and made an editor instead of paying him informally in this way.

    The result might be improved Slashdot editing, and fewer links to a mediocre blog.
    • How about you just -not- click any links that are submitted by Ronald Piquepaille?

      -Every- goddamn time the guy posts something, it is met by the same responses (mostly done by AC though) , acting as if getting revenue from ads is the worst thing around.

      Just in case you did not notice ; Slashdot has more or less the same function, as being an outlet (ALSO relying on add-revenue) to expose articles on other sites : When is the time you gonna complaint about this ?

      When you have a problem with Piquepaille'

  • Stanislav Lem wrote a story about bacteria communicating in Morse. I vaguely remember it, a scientist noticed the resemblance between the dots and bars of bacteria growing on a petri dish, so he mutated bacteria until it was capable of spelling out morse code and communicating in words. Alas I don't remember the whole story, or the title, anyone remember it?
  • I thought I could hear "dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot" coming from my liver on new years eve.

  • Stop the Roland Piquepaille nightmare! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:42PM (#11344763)
    For christ's sake, if I read another ad for this asshole's fucking blog _where he doesn't even actually write any of the fucking content_, it'll be too fucking soon. Why the fuck do the editors insist on promoting this no-talent assclown?

    Dammit, it took fucking _forever_ for Katz to go away. Not fucking looking forward to doing that again, but looks like we're right back to it.
    • if I read another ad for this asshole's fucking blog _where he doesn't even actually write any of the fucking content_, it'll be too fucking soon
      Couldn't agree more. This time rather than ripping content from the New Scientist, he's ripping it from a publication he doesn't even know the name of: it's not 'Business' (what the hell kinda sense would that make? it's about bio-sciences!), it's 'BBSRC Business'!

  • Also Known As (Score:3, Interesting)

    by boatboy (549643) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:45PM (#11344778) Homepage
    The Force

  • A real reference (Score:3, Informative)

    by monocyte (849219) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:46PM (#11344789)
    Diappointingly, none of these links actually included any sort of reference to the scientific literature. Luckily, it was pretty easy to find one: "Oscillations in NF-kappaB signaling control the dynamics of gene expression", Science. 2004 Oct 22;306(5696):704-8. You can find the abstract on pubmed, and if you or your institution happens to have a subscription to Science you can read it online. Looking at the abstract, it seems like the morse code analogy is not very accurate: gene transcription is dependent on oscillation frequency of a transcription factor, but there doesn't seem to be any encoding in the signal in the manner of morse code.

  • Oh Good! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rubberbando (784342) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @11:54PM (#11345246) Homepage
    Now that we know how to communicate with them...

    Could someone convert the following messages to morris code for me?

    To my head hair follicles: START GROWING AGAIN!

    To my back, ear, and nose hair follicles : STOP GROWING SO MUCH!

  • Pants! (Score:3, Funny)

    by LoudMusic (199347) on Thursday January 13 2005, @01:00AM (#11345658)
    All this time it was Morse Code ... and I tried buying girls beer to switch their jeans off.

  • Link to Original Article (Score:3, Informative)

    by stiggle (649614) on Thursday January 13 2005, @06:04AM (#11346888)
    The original article (without ads)

    http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/media/pressreleases/05_01_1 0_cell_morse_code.html [bbsrc.ac.uk]

    Media Releases
    10 January 2005
    A Morse code for human cells

    Morse code is a simple, effective and clear method of communication and now scientists believe that cells in our body may also be using patterns of signals to switch genes on and off. The discovery may have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry as the signalling molecules that are targeted by drugs may have more than one purpose. The number of 'dots and dashes' being used by each signal could have different purposes, all of which could be modified by a drug.

    The researchers, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and working at the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester and the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, in collaboration with scientists at AstraZeneca and Pfizer, have studied transcription factors, the signalling molecules inside cells that activate or deactivate genes. They found that the strength of the signal is less important than the dynamic frequency pattern that is used.

    Professor Michael White of the Centre for Cell Imaging at Liverpool and leader of the research group said, "The timing of the repeating signal is essential for its interpretation. It seems that cells may read the oscillations in level of transcription factors in a similar way to Morse code."

    The researchers focused on the response of a transcription factor involved in controlling the crucial processes of cell division and cell death. They found that the dynamics of the signalling molecule resemble the changes in calcium levels that encode other messages in cells. The results suggest how common signalling molecules could convey different messages through different frequencies.

    Professor Douglas Kell, who sits on BBSRC Council and is a member of the research team, said, "This raises new challenges for drug designers. It appears that simply aiming to knock down signalling molecules with drugs, as many people are trying to do, may have weak or even undesirable effects as a range of signals could be cancelled out. It is going to be important in the future to decode the Morse-like messages from the molecules to make sure that only the desired effects are blocked."

    Professor Julia Goodfellow, BBSRC Chief Executive, said, "This research is an example of a multi-disciplinary approach producing vitally important results. By combining expertise in cell biology, chemistry, mathematical modelling and bio-imaging the research team have discovered this coded signal that is going to inform the development of better, more effective drugs."

    ENDS
    Contacts

    Matt Goode , BBSRC Media Office

    Tel: 01793 413299, E-mail: matt.goode@bbsrc.ac.uk

    Professor Michael White, University of Liverpool

    E-mail: m.white@liv.ac.uk

    Professor Douglas Kell, University of Manchester

    E-mail: dbk@man.ac.uk

    Notes to Editors

    This research features in the January 2005 issue of Business, the quarterly magazine of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

    The researchers used cultured cells, which had been modified to carry fluorescent proteins or a gene for bioluminescence which enabled them to visualise events in the cell.

    The signalling molecule focused on was NF-kappa B which is a transcription factor involved in cell death and cell division.

    The collaborative research was conducted by scientists at the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool , The Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital and the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Pfizer.

    About BBSRC

    The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the UK funding agency for research in the life sciences. Sponsored by Government, BBSRC annually invests around £300 million in a wide ran

    • The truth about Roland Piquepaille (Score:4)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2005, @09:57PM (#11344407)
      Roland Piquepaille and Slashdot: Is there a connection?

      I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts. Roland Piquepaille has an online journal (I refuse to use the word "blog") located at http://www.primidi.com/ [primidi.com]. It is titled "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends". It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he start giving credit where credit was due. However, this is not what the controversy is about.

      Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends serves online advertisements through a service called Blogads, located at www.blogads.com. Blogads is not your traditional online advertiser; rather than base payments on click-throughs, Blogads pays a flat fee based on the level of traffic your online journal generates. This way Blogads can guarantee that an advertisement on a particular online journal will reach a particular number of users. So advertisements on high traffic online journals are appropriately more expensive to buy, but the advertisement is guaranteed to be seen by a large amount of people. This, in turn, encourages people like Roland Piquepaille to try their best to increase traffic to their journals in order to increase the going rates for advertisements on their web pages. But advertisers do have some flexibility. Blogads serves two classes of advertisements. The premium ad space that is seen at the top of the web page by all viewers is reserved for "Special Advertisers"; it holds only one advertisement. The secondary ad space is located near the bottom half of the page, so that the user must scroll down the window to see it. This space can contain up to four advertisements and is reserved for regular advertisers, or just "Advertisers". Visit Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends (http://www.primidi.com/ [primidi.com]) to see it for yourself.

      Before we talk about money, let's talk about the service that Roland Piquepaille provides in his journal. He goes out and looks for interesting articles about new and emerging technologies. He provides a very brief overview of the articles, then copies a few choice paragraphs and the occasional picture from each article and puts them up on his web page. Finally, he adds a minimal amount of original content between the copied-and-pasted text in an effort to make the journal entry coherent and appear to add value to the original articles. Nothing more, nothing less.

      Now let's talk about money. Visit http://www.blogads.com/order_html?adstrip_category =tech&politics= [blogads.com] to check the following facts for yourself. As of today, December XX 2004, the going rate for the premium advertisement space on Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is $375 for one month. One of the four standard advertisements costs $150 for one month. So, the maximum advertising space brings in $375 x 1 + $150 x 4 = $975 for one month. Obviously not all $975 will go directly to Roland Piquepaille, as Blogads gets a portion of that as a service fee, but he will receive the majority of it. According to the FAQ, Blogads takes 20%. So Roland Piquepaille gets 80% of $975, a maximum of $780 each month. www.primidi.com is hosted by clara.net (look it up at http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index. jhtml [networksolutions.com]). Browsing clara.net's hosting solutions, the most expensive hosting service is their Clarahost Advanced (http://www.uk.clara.net/clarahost/advanced.php [clara.net]) priced at £69.99 GBP. This is

        • Re:The truth about Roland Piquepaille (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12 2005, @10:12PM (#11344523)
          What you call "distilling" others would call "blatent plagarism". Roland is a repeated lying plagarist, and you are aparently an unknowning tool of his. Too bad the Slashdot masters don't have the balls to honestly admit what the real relationship between them and Roland really is.

        • Re:The truth about Roland Piquepaille (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gl4ss (559668) on Wednesday January 12 2005, @11:08PM (#11344970) Homepage Journal
          you know how much he is making?

          using a hour per day for 1000$ doesn't sound too bad.

          the thing is, the guy makes no content of his own, offers no visions of his own, offers no insight of his own. offers no clever linking of information to other types of same kind of information. does stories(CUTS AND PASTES) in 'bulk', submits them to slashdot in bulk. writes boringly. doesn't even focus on any particular area of science, technology or society.

          karma be damned, fuck roland - IF THE FUCKING BLOG WOULD BE INTRESTING AS WHOLE ___OTHER___ PEOPLE WOULD FUCKING SUBMIT THE STORIES - JUST MAKE IT INTRESTING, NO NEED TO WHORE YOURSELF.

          he could at least have courtesy to submit the stories under fake aliases.

          and slashdot: if you pass his stories without blinking - Make him a fucking editor or add custom filtering.

          and people with mod points.. mod the grandparent up just for kicks. or me down(it's not like i'd drop from excellent anyways).
    • Morse code is considered binary right?

      Wrong. Since Morse code does not represent all letters with the same number of dashes and dots (as, for example, ASCII does), it in fact needs three possible values -- dash, dot, and separator (a space). Hence, it is not really binary.

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