DNA So Dangerous It Doesn't Exist

Panaqqa writes "A group of researchers at Boise State University is investigating the theory that there are genome sequences so dangerous they are incompatible with life. Greg Hampikian, a professor of genetics, and his team are comparing all possible short sequences of nucleotides to databases of gene sequences to determine which ones don't exist in nature. The New Scientist reports that the US Department of Defense is interested enough in their work to have awarded them a $1 million grant. I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take."

Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World

[ztransform (929641)]

Just like the Monty Python sketch "the Funniest Joke in the World" [wikipedia.org], developing something that kills itself too quickly isn't going to get propagated far without a lot of effort!

Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World

[bloodredsun (826017)]

But forensic analyses of blood has found cases well before 1969 (the earliest definite is 1959), and current research has the earliest cases at some time in the 1930's.

So no it doesn't sound like AIDS was manufactured.

Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World

[MightyYar (622222)]

1. Create deadly AIDS virus.
2. Release to Africa and homosexuals.
3. Profit?

Seriously, let's say the US government possessed such a useless weapon as a blood-borne disease. Let's say they decided to use it. They didn't test it on prisoners or Soviets... no, they went to dirt-poor Africa and infected a bunch of folk there. And maybe they went to San Francisco and infected some gay folks, too. Then the government manages to keep this whole operation a secret and never uses this "weapon" again. The government is terrible at keeping even important things secret - to the point where they redact documents by changing their color in a PDF! Do you really think that the US government was able to develop a virus in secret, and then deploy it in secret?

That violates Occam's razor. A much simpler explanation is that AIDS evolved to exploit weaknesses in the human immune system, just as many diseases that have come before it.

Re:

[the_B0fh (208483)]

Actually, there's another viable theory. There was a tv documentary about it. Try looking up polio research and the use of monkey kidneys (simian hiv is not deadly to simians). Good possibility that the polio used in Africa (but not elsewhere, like US) was contaminated with simian hiv, and that mutated.

Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World

[gordyf (23004)]

Just a nitpick, but AIDS cannot evolve as it's not a virus, merely a condition. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS.

Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World

[Alsee (515537)]

That violates Occam's razor.

But you're forgetting Occam's Shaving Cream.

Conspiracy theory is the handy-dandy foaming lubricant for avoiding the harsh cut of Occam's Razor.

Occam's Shaving Cream says that Conspiracy theories can trade off lubrication vs foam factor. If a conspiracy theory is slick enough, you don't need much foam. And if the initial conspiracy isn't very slick, the harder someone tries to rub it away the harder it foams up.

-

Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World

[budcub (92165)]

Who are the remaining 1% who wouldn't want this cure?
Religious fanatics. There is a new vaccine out now for HPV that can prevent cervical cancer in women, and some religious organizations are debating whether it is "moral" for teenage girls to have the vaccine. They think the threat of getting HPV and cervical cancer may prevent girls from having premarital sex.

Re:

[LunaticTippy (872397)]

I know how things work in Pharma currently. It's disgusting. I also think that if a business could be lazy enough and long-sighted enough they could do things differently and prosper. It's this retarded focus on current-quarter profits at the expense of everything else that is making things stupid.

Take the HPV vaccine. It'll make trillions. Doesn't matter if poor people can't afford it. It'll be given out gratis because emergency rooms would rather pay $100 for a vaccine than $10k for an uninsured pe

Suicide genes?

[BlackMesaLabs (893043)]

Suicide genes that can be activated at a later date?
I - am - not - a - machi --*Boom*

I, for one,

[BerkeleyDude (827776)]

I, for one, welcome our new incompatible non-existing overlords.

Re:I, for one,

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

Hey, religion claims prior art! Now you owe 1 billion dollars to the catholic church!

Exactly

[WasterDave (20047)]

I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take.

Well, quite. Gene replacement therapy with ones that aren't compatible with life. At all. A project run by the US DOD. "Bound to end in tears" doesn't even start to cover it. Great.

Dave

Re:

[Ingolfke (515826)]

A project run by the US DOD. "Bound to end in tears" doesn't even start to cover it.

You are so totally right because DoD funded projects are always massive failures or horrible weapons. Oh wait... there's the Internet and OpenBSD.

I though it was an other 'idea' like ID

[sodul (833177)]

When I first read the title I though it was about a new theory of some religious group trying to say that DNA is dangerous because it proves the theory of evolution so some school board declared that it does not exist.

Maybe there is some DNA that codes for 666 or that translates to "Hell freezes over".

But I know that DNA is really coding 42.

Re:

[Ingolfke (515826)]

Yeah cause it would suck if "some religious" group used science to disprove a scientific theory. Science is science man... it doesn't matter if it's conducted by the most dedicated atheist or a devout Christian. It's the science that matters.

Re:I though it was an other 'idea' like ID

[Ingolfke (515826)]

A big problem is idiots like you who make generalizations like "science" done by fundamentalists only tries to explain the "observations" found in the Bible. Again... if the science stands up it's science... it doesn't matter if it was done by a brilliant genious or a druged-out bum who happens to think the FSM is real... if the science is good it's good, period. Just because someone is an athiest doesn't make their science good. Just because someone is a Christian doesn't make their science bad. The science stands on it's own!

Dump the stupid agendas. If the science can't stand up then it can't stand up. If the science does stand up then it does... unless you're saying "I want to believe in randomly caused macro-evolution so much that I want to ignore scientific evidence from anyone who doesn't agree with me."

Re:

[Ingolfke (515826)]

I'm sick of this bullshit. You're bias against religious people is obvious. Have you not stuided science enough to realize how many crackpot theories there are out there... how many scientists who ase so certain they know they're right and others who contradict them with complete certainty. Just reading /. frequently it becomes obvious that many scientists report bogus data or overstate their findings. To be so arragoant and biased as to just assign this to religious people ignores the facts.

A million dollars??

[teslar (706653)]

From TFA:

To do this, Hampikian and his colleage Tim Anderson, also at Boise, have developed software that calculates all the possible sequences of nucleotides - the "letters" of DNA - up to a certain length, and then scans sequence databases such as the US National Institutes of Health's Genbank to identify the smallest sequences that aren't present.

So, basically, it's one regexp and a database lookup. Which is fine (how else would you do it?) but all this requires is one afternoon of PhD time followed by a lot of computer crunching. Even if you buy a very shiny very fast dedicated computer for this, where do the remaining 990 000 dollars go?

Re:A million dollars??

[teslar (706653)]

Ah well, reading the rest of TFA (yeah I know, should have done that before, but hey :) ):

He has already received a $1 million grant from the US Department of Defense to develop a DNA "safety tag" that could be added to voluntary DNA reference samples in criminal cases to distinguish them from forensic samples. Such tags would not necessarily have to consist of lethal sequences, but could be based on primes that would be easy to detect using a simple kit.

So the /. summary was misleading, the DoD isn't actually after lethal DNA sequences at all and that is not where the money's going.

Re:A million dollars??

[Vreejack (68778)]

So the /. summary was misleading...

I'm shocked, shocked to discover sensational flamebait summaries posted here.

Re:A million dollars??

[Ingolfke (515826)]

I hope you're not serious that a "shinny very fast dedicated computer" costs $10k. You can easily spend $100k on a good computer and of course science is driving these massive supercomputing clusters that probably cost $10k/day to operate. Anyways... back to your question.

where do the remaining 990 000 dollars go?

Salaries to pay the PhDs to process and analyze the data and tune the software and not go to China or Russia or someone else who'd like to know more about this stuff.

stupid

[mapkinase (958129)]

He is presenting his results at the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing in Maui, Hawaii, this week.

That is pathetic claim to importance. The only reason it reached the top /. page is paranoia prevalent at /. The whole research smells pseudo-science at the distance between Hawaii and East Coast (where the government are, but they do not smell it, of course).

Especially stupid are searches for amino-acid sequences. Some of the sequences do not make structural sense, obviously.

And what about "dangerous"? Obviously, if the sequence is so crappy that it makes the working conformation of every structural RNA or protein disfunctional then it won't be reproduced. Never.

More interesting would be to find out why some sequences are not encountered also in non-coding areas. But "danger"???

Give me a break. This is as stupid as stupid goes.

This is the worst use of $1M!!!

[EvoDevo (951991)]

First of all, I am doing research in computational biology. I just read the paper linked from his webpage at http://biology.boisestate.edu/hampikian [boisestate.edu] and I have to say that this is one of the worse papers I have ever read. First of all, I can literally write a program to do all that he proposed in about 10 minutes. Give me the $1 mil, I'll do the research. Although the idea of systematically finding nullomers can have practical applications, there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO evidence that they are incompatible with life. And wow, isn't this the eye catching title that we see on /. The numbers of nullomers that he found in the human genome, for example, looks like they are in line with expectation given a genome genome that is AT rich (more A and T nucleotides than G / C nucleotide). Because the human genome is finite (only about 3 billion nucleotides), of course you are going to find DNA sequence even at only 11 bases long that do not exist in the human genome. Just do the math! 4^11 = 4.2 billion. It makes me so furious that our government wastes so much money on useless stuff.

Re:This is the worst use of $1M!!!

[cowscows (103644)]

You missed the last paragraph, obviously. This new DNA will be created out of anti-matter, creating what is essentially anti-DNA. This anti-DNA will annihilate on contact with normal DNA, and release incredible amounts of energy.

The DOD's goal is to eventually breed entire anti-DNA animals. Imagine an anti-rat, which could infiltrate an enemy building through the sewer lines or hide in a packaging crate or whatever. Once it's entered the compound it would emerge from hiding, and natural instincts would drive it to attempt mating with other rats. Since it's likely that most of the rats it may find will be of the normal, non-anti-matter variety, the commencing of the mating process will result in mutual annihilation of both rats, and the release of ridiculous amounts of energy. So a hugemongous explosion.

Of course, by breaking this story, slashdot has probably saved millions of lives. Had the pentagon kept this secret as they had hoped, they'd be able to hide their attacks right in public view. Imagine the generous donation by a US "Charity" of a full grown elephant to the Beijing zoo. Little would the chinese government expect that this is actually an anti-elephant, and when it interacted with the normal elephants they already had...let's just say that China wouldn't be challenging the US economy any time soon.

MWAHAAHAHAHAHAH!

Run for the hills

[Adam J Stone (1018520)]

There may also be some that are lethal in some species, but not others. We're looking for those sequences.

This article reminds me of a doomsday hypothesis I once read. Daniel Pouzzner [mega.nu] posted this some time ago on his website:

It is quite likely that the Endangered Species Act and similar policies will continue to be enforced, setting large areas of land (and associated natural resources) out of the reach of interested industries. Corporations in these industries will create a demand for black market genetic bullet engineering, by which obstacle species can be purged, freeing the land for industrial exploitation. The profit motive is overwhelming; the resources at issue are worth trillions of today's dollars annually. An engineer who can target species on demand can obviously target humans, or even subsets of humans, if he wants to. Black markets by definition are not subject to regulatory scrutiny, and of course tend to be populated by unsavory and low characters. The environmentalist extremists (many of whom are well-financed or independently wealthy) will retain the services of some of these black market operators, to "fight back" (as they see it) on behalf of the species being targeted for/by the corporations. This will probably culminate in a doomsday bug.

Should read: DNA So Useless It Doesn't Exist

[Mixel (723232)]

Nature generally selects proteins that fold well, because it leads to some stable function. Nature therefore selects DNA sequences that code for such proteins. Rare/nonexistant DNA sequences code for rare/nonexistant proteins that are unlikely to have a stable fold. It is probably worth investigating just in case a few of those have interesting function. The research equivalent of going through someone's garbage. $1 million doesn't go very far these days, so it sounds about right. Why is this in the headlines, again?

Afraid?

[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

``I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take.''

You mean that it could be used to manufacture new weapons? I don't know if having n+1 ways to kill is really much worse than having n ways, given that n is already as large as it is.

I know a word that doesn't exist...

[highacnumber (988934)]

Just like in DNA, there are words so dangerous that they don't exist. Here's one of them: sdlnfnerooij. Use it with care and send me the check. Most DNA does something, or is a slightly mutated version of a sequence that does something (like endogenous retroviruses). So its like a language with some spelling mistakes - of course there are lots of sequences that won't be there. And if you look at long enough strings, there have to be some missing.

OH NOES SEW SKARIE!

[Rogerborg (306625)]

What are the DoD going to do; shoot me with a bullet impregnated with a mutagen?

Re:Hmmm... paradox?

[ArsenneLupin (766289)]

Imagine a mouse with a DNA sequence that makes it want to run into mousetraps when it reaches a certain age. Obviously something like won't have much of a chance to procreate.

You mean, like toxoplasmosis [wikipedia.org]?

Re:

[Mostly a lurker (634878)]

Obviously something like won't have much of a chance to procreate.

While higher lifeforms will not readily use them, these DNA sequences might be quite handy for a mutating virus to latch onto. I hope they are very careful with their experiments.

Re:Hmmm... paradox?

[kfg (145172)]

I hope they are very careful with their experiments.

Indeed,we wouldn't want a petri dish to catch cold.

KFG

Re:Hmmm... paradox?

[Walt Dismal (534799)]

Undoubtedly the plot of the fourth Indiana Jones movie.

"Doctor Jones? We'd like you to find the lost macguffin of death that kills anything with DNA before the Nazis find it. Oh, and the French Dr. Sneeringfart, your longterm rival, is already on the trail."

A few scenes from the movie:

Dr S: "Fine wine - too bad you won't live to enjoy it, Jones!"

Indy: "Snakes on a plane? Why does it always have to be snakes on a plane!?"

Indy: "There was an ancient legend that the Aztecs put this in the cocoa of their enemies. DNA incompatible with human life! It's like a bad dream of science!"

Explorer babe: "Oh, Indy, ignore that tiny bottle of deadly DNA and pay some attention to MY DNA!!"

Er, I expect the title will be, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Lost Biowarfare.

Re:Hmmm... paradox?

[AGMW (594303)]

Er, I expect the title will be, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Lost Biowarfare.

Other favourites include (but are not limited too) :-
Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Pension Fund
Indian Jones and the Sanatogen [sanatogen.co.uk] of Doom
Indian Jones and the Lost Slippers

Re:Hmmm... paradox?

[Tatarize (682683)]

Um, actually no. At a certain point it becomes more fit for an organism to die. The gene pool and species as a whole evolve, not the individuals. There is a reason old people tend to stop healing, and more so when they aren't needed. Taking up resources and dragging down your family is a bad thing, so at a certain age genes tend to help kill off individuals rather than help them live longer.

Genes which kill you off when you are a drain on the gene pool are more fit. They tend to help the other individuals in the larger group, many with that same gene. So the gene helps itself by helping others... and killing its possessor.

Re:

[aadvancedGIR (959466)]

But you could also say that the elders, by helping taking care of the village children and teaching their wisdom can still be usefull to the community, so maybe ageing is a way to have a longer (but less active) life by reducing the constraints on the body (and perhaps the risk of cancer). Maybe at a certain age you don't heal anymore simply because the needed effort would otherwise kill you.

Re:

[jafiwam (310805)]

I wonder if anybody has done a "hunter gatherer" typical old person stuff analysis of fitness for the group.

For example, behavior of young males being aggressive, reckless, and willing to charge ahead to a fight, vs mature adults that tend to be conservative and stay with the group has a purpose. Young males are tougher and heal better and faster, and are also somewhat expendable.

Take the same concept and apply it to the oldsters. Eyesight problems keeps them close to home, rabid love for the grandchildre

Re:DoD ?

[pakar (813627)]

DoD - Dudes of Death

Why change a working slogan? :)

Re:DoD ?

[richieb (3277)]

It used to be called the Department of War. It was changed after WW II.

Re:DoD ?

[thebdj (768618)]

I have to agree with another child post. Let me give you some non-violent and important examples of the DoD's research.
1. The Internet. You are using it now. It was originally created by ARPA, now DARPA, which is part of the DoD. You can thank the need for a interconnected, wired (and unwired) network for computer systems the military was using for the "Birth of the Internet."
2. GPS. Another advance that came from a military need.
3. Computers. Not entirely DoD based, but ENIAC was built for calculating artillery firing tables for the US Army, which falls under what is now the DoD.

Those are just three I can think of pretty readily without having to go digging for information. Do they do other research into weapons? Yes. Is it all to make things more deadly? Not necessarily. It is really to make them more effective and efficient. A lot of these researches are done in an attempt to save soldiers' lives and to prevent civilian casualties. A lot of their medical research is along the same vein. If not for some dumb laws (created by the US government), I wouldn't be surprised if the DoD was dumping tons of money into stem-cell research too. Trust me, it isn't all bad.

Re:

[Johnny5000 (451029)]

I have to agree with another child post. Let me give you some non-violent and important examples of the DoD's research.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with the DoD researching new technologies. Sure, they come up with great new inventions for both military and civilian use. It just says something about our national priorities that the only way a lot of these things could get researched is if they have some sort of potential military application.

Might as well imagine shrink rays.

[Tatarize (682683)]

Well that's just stupid. "Race" isn't really anything. There are very few genes which actually differ between such groups. You'd think maybe Asians have genes for their eyes but that same gene exists elsewhere... take a look at Bjork. You'd really be shooting yourself in the foot. As for the difference between Jews and Arabs, there aren't many. As in none, genetically you can't tell them apart.

Let's say you wanted to kill all blonds. You make a virus that becomes active when it contacts the sequence for blond hair. Assuming you did something to make sure the recessive gene didn't just strike carriers too, you'd end killing blonds and gingers. Ginger is simply red-red, blond-blond genes, whereas blonds are Not-red-* blond-blond. Not-red is a dominate gene, whereas red is recessive.

Really, you'd want to do the old death camp method. You need to sort them out based on a rather non-existent grouping... that is something only racists can do, not viruses.

You think there is some gene that defines a race... there really isn't. There are certain genes which exist in varied frequency but none that are that isolated. You might be able to wipe out a village with some rare mutation but, otherwise you're going to create something that just starts killing people off pretty much at random.

Re:Might as well imagine shrink rays.

[Wonko the Sane (25252)]

Assuming you did something to make sure the recessive gene didn't just strike carriers too, you'd end killing blonds and gingers.

What's so bad about that? We all know that gingers have no souls [wikipedia.org].

Red Power!

Re:

[TheLink (130905)]

Sure there are few genetic differences between one race and another race (and male and female for that matter).

But there are also few genetic differences between chimps and humans too, and those few differences make chimps very different from humans in our eyes.

Sure to an alien creature there might be no big difference between chimp, human or even ant - all are DNA based organisms and a subgroup of carbon based lifeforms.

But to us, there are significant differences.

Also: though the average specimens may not

Re:

[zuiraM (1027890)]

I'd consider it more likely that a lab "accident" causes it to kill off the Palestinian population, or possibly even the majority of the Arab world. All it takes is one wrong person in the right place at the right time. And the majority of current leaders in Israel fit every criterion but "right time" at the moment.

Of course, I'd hate for them to pick up this idea, but they've probably thought about it already:

If they are willing to sacrifice the majority of their population as well, they could create a bio

Re:

[mrjb (547783)]

Does that mean that God is a good programmer? Quite a dreadful one, actually. Sure, he wrote this terraforming application in just six days, but a bit more planning would have been wise. Just look at the amount of bugs it has! He's been busy 'fixing' them them ever since, but for every bug eliminated, another was introduced... it's not strange that things haven't evolved since. It's an unmaintainable legacy application by now, a rewrite from scratch would be best.

Re:

[jc42 (318812)]

Since 90% of DNA is useless junk (warning: figure pulled out of ass, but it's a big number I believe) ...

The percentage isn't too important (and varies for different species), but there's growing evidence that the "junk DNA" isn't necessarily useless. The phrase really just means DNA that doesn't seem to code for any proteins via any mechanism that we know. But this doesn't mean that it has no function. A few instances of "noncoding" DNA functioning as a regulator of nearby genes have been found, for exa

Re:

[geekoid (135745)]

Jeez, don't be an idiot.
The DOD funds many pieces of research without the idea that it wouold kill people.
Yes, they also fund research that kills people.
If You have been paying attention you would note that the DoD focuses on smaller strategic strikes with maximum impact.

What's the DoD hoping to find? I way to rearange someones genetic structure so the magically turn to goo? There are better, faster, cheaper, and realistic ways of actually killing someone.

You people knee jerk reaction to these articles is m

Re:

[eno2001 (527078)]

Oh I'm well aware of the fact that they research things that aren't used for killing. You're using the fruits of some of that research right now to attack me. ;P (RAR!!!) I'm not saying the D.O.D. is evil. I'm saying that there are some very warped people who work at various levels of our government who are very interested in the ultimate killing technologies. Especially solutions that would exterminate all life on Earth if necessary just to win an ideological argument. Considering how you went off on

Re:

[TheLink (130905)]

Why do that? Govs can just stop being stupidly trying to ban people from smoking and just keep taxing tobacco heavily.

They should still keep educating them on the dangers of smoking and make it illegal for kids to start or be sold cigs to.

But other than that, if you know the dangers and you still like to smoke a few packs a day: "Thank you citizen for your contribution and sacrifice!"

If you die soon after your productive years or retirement, you are no longer a drag to healthcare - while there's your last 3