DNA So Dangerous It Doesn't Exist 454
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."
Re:DoD ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A million dollars?? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World (Score:1, Informative)
For instance, if you could modify the common cold into two strains that, when combined, cause the original strain to be reassembled in the victim, then you could choose two patient zero groups with a wide geographical spacing and watch the clock tick.
The real issue is choosing the right way to limit burnout and then finding a way to control them, so they can be applied as anything other than WMDs, although the US has displayed its eagerness to deploy WMDs in the past.
Of course, such a strain of anything might be a couple of mutations short of an extinction event, but that has never bothered anyone actually working on these things or funding them to the extent that it stopped "progress".
Re:Hmmm... paradox? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Might as well imagine shrink rays. (Score:5, Informative)
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:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World (Score:2, Informative)
This is different. Long double-stranded DNA molecules (up to several kilobases) can be synthesized chemically in large quantities without using organisms. These can then be introduced into organisms by transfection. If the organisms die, the DNA is lethal.
Re:Last night I had a premonition of racial weapon (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Might as well imagine shrink rays. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World (Score:4, Informative)
Re:From a programmers perspective (Score:3, Informative)
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 example.
An interesting thing came out of the recent sequencing of the DNA of the domestic chicken. It seems that the researchers found a "junk" sequence of around 20,000 base pairs that are identical with a section of human DNA. The common ancestor was around 200 million years ago, and if this DNA weren't useful, random mutations and crossover events would have long since wiped it out. For such a long sequence to be preserved for 200 million years, it has to have a useful function in both species, and will probably be found in most other birds and mammals. Either that, or it's a retrovirus that has colonized both species' genomes. We have no idea what it is, but future research will probably explain it.
Anyway, researchers are starting to suspect that not all of that "junk DNA" is useless. But we're a long way from understanding it all.
Re:It Comes as No Surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds Like the Funniest Joke in the World (Score:1, Informative)