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DNA-Radio, Tune In To Your Chromosomes
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:46 PM
from the because-we-can dept.
from the because-we-can dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The folks behind the DNA-Rainbow project (discussed on Slashdot before) apparently have some time to play around with genome data. After creating amazing pictures from the human DNA code they are now transforming all chromosomes to audio and streaming them to the Internet. Every base is read and broadcasted instead converting it to a color. Seemingly this artistic project will last a while. After some math they found out that it will take them more than 23.5 years to air the whole human genome sequence."
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DNA-rainbow, A New Vision of Human Chromosomes 161 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Two scientists have rendered amazing pictures using datafiles from the human genome project. They assigned different colors to the DNA and rendered images showing interesting patterns and strange structures of our chromosomes. It might be a groundbreaking new idea for displaying and maybe better understanding our genes. With its fascinating pictures it is a beautiful mix of science and art."
Firehose:DNA-radio, Tune In To Your Chromosomes by Anonymous Coward
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CCCCCAGCAAGCCCA (Score:4, Funny)
Re:CCCCCAGCAAGCCCA (Score:5, Interesting)
I was actually a little disappointed when I heard the feed.. Hadn't expected it to be just a robotic reader spelling out the sequence.
Thought they might have just used the fact that three of the bases start with letters that are also musical notes in the english notation (A, C and G).. Choose a suitable 4th note for Thymine (maybe E, its last letter) and then run it through a midi sampler..
To spice it up, they could do some fun stuff with combinations, for example altering the tempo when you found repetitions of the same base, something for sharp/flat (just to mix it up a bit), etc..
Maybe not the point of this experiment (well, if you can call it that -- this isn't exactly science anyway), but as with the previous graphics experiment, it might even produce some interesting tune somewhere down the line.
As it is, though a nice code hack I'm sure, the result is a tad boring.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It could be interesting to play all three members of each base triplet simultaneously, in three different octaves, one "chord" after another. This might even help researchers listen for specific amino acid combinations, which some people might find easier than reading row upon row of CCATGCCAAGAT.
The triplets might also be translated into different chords not directly related to the A minor 7 chord (A C E G). This would help when two bases of a triplet are the same, as it is generally more difficult to hear
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nice. (Score:4, Insightful)
So now, YOUR dna isnt just covered be somebody else's patents, but now your DNA is someone else's copyrights.
Re: (Score:2)
That wasnt supposed to be funny.
This is the result when one attempts to "reform patents", as we see in a prior article. Remember that patents only have a life of around 17 years. Copyright is, what, 150 years or so, if owned by a corporation. If the corps cant own it via patents, they'll own it via copyright. It's simply the Tragedy of the Anticommons., and was guessed if patent rights were, or perceived to be weakened.
-- a poem from the opening of Distress, by Greg Egan
It is not true that the map of freed
Re:Nice. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Like, a couple want to have kids, but they have to pay for a "DNA combination license" prior to the conception.
Since sex carries the risk of conception, even non-conceptive sex will need a proper authorization and a ID (specifying, among other things, sexual orientation). Gay people don't like that and say it does not apply to them, but so is the law.
Parents would not only worry with feeding, paying school etc. There will be a regular tax which would go to a R
Douglas Adams (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Douglas Adams (Score:4, Informative)
I was hoping they'd be playing some sort of music created from the sequences. listening to some monotone voice recite letters of the alphabet ad-nausium isn't going to attract anyone
Parent
Re:Douglas Adams (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Douglas Adams (Score:4, Informative)
to be honest i was thinking the same thing.. after seeng some of the patterns in the image versions i was wondering if they where going to take either the individual pairs and match them with and instrament or have one modify the other or something - kinda like the network analyser that turns logs and box loads into clasical music..
if they did that and it was remotely nice to listen to.. i would have it book marked - but after 30seconds of that thing i will never touch it again except maybe to troll someone
Parent
older (Score:2)
John Cage wasn't just talking about it, he was doing it (including radios and other aleatory elements in his performances) back in the 1940s.
The wanty gene. (Score:2)
"After some math they found out that it will take them more than 23.5 years to air the whole human genome sequence."
And yet it'll still be torrented.
Little do we know... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not broken. It's been given to a two-year-old. Parents of two-year-olds can back me up on this one.
("would you please stop pushing that same f@%*#&$ button!?")
I don't get it... (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like a numbers station, but at that it's still not very useful.
The problem with this and DNA-rainbow is that it doesn't transform the domain of the raw base pairs into a domain of human vision (or audition) in such a way that actual higher-order patterns occur. We take long strings of tabular numbers that have no pattern at all and transform it into a beautiful curve, and this gives us insight into what the numbers may mean, what they may do in the future, etc. But this stuff adds nothing to the noisy junk it's built on... imho
Numbers Station (Score:3, Interesting)
Bit boring really (Score:2)
It has to be said (Score:2)
DNA to Sound (Score:2, Informative)
premise of Species movies (Score:3, Informative)
This project is overrated. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This project is overrated. - Modem hacked genes (Score:2, Funny)
Bring the 14.4 modem out of the closet and demodulate the audio sequence data.
Then, when you've got the entire code backed up locally, sue them for releasing
sensitive medical data over the internet without authorization.
Step 4: profit.
Re: (Score:2)