Largest Genome Ever 189
sciencehabit writes "A rare Japanese flower named Paris japonica sports an astonishing 149 billion base pairs, making it 50 times the size of a human genome — and the largest genome ever found. The genome would be taller than Big Ben if stretched out end to end. The researchers warn however that big genomes tend to be a liability: plants with lots of DNA have more trouble tolerating pollution and extreme climatic extinctions—and they grow more slowly than plants with less DNA, because it takes so long to replicate their genome."
Actually ... (Score:4, Informative)
Big Ben is, technically, the nick-name of the Great Bell inside the clock tower. That bell is only slightly taller than 2 meters.
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Actually ... (Score:5, Informative)
It's a nickname, there is no "technically".
It is commonly used to refer to the bell, or to the clock, or to the clock tower.
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:3, Informative)
Converted to mathematics, the error in logic if more clear:
1) You say that for all 'x', there must be an 'x-1'. ("a cause", "antecedent", "precedent", or whatever)
2) You say that "we atheists" claim that the "first thing" is '1'.
3) Hence, if there's a '1', there must be a '0'. ("the first thing must be created")
4) Then, you basically make the unfounded claim that '0' must be 'God'.*
The problem is that this simply implies that all negative numbers must exist also, (-1, -2, -3, etc...), since there's no reason to stop at 0.
In other words, there's no reason to stop at "God". God must also have a cause. And the cause of God must also have a cause, etc...
If you say that "God" is special and has no cause, then (1) was not true, it's actually "for all 'x' except some 'x' there must be an 'x-1'", which is a different rule. Hence, the whole argument is hogwash, since the original rule cannot be true for it to work. That is, if there are exceptions to the rule, then there's no reason for the Universe itself to not be one of those exceptions. This argument, and it's counter-arguments have been known since ancient times, it's not exactly new. You're not exactly surprising any Atheists with a shocking new proof. For crying out loud, there's a 10-page Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] about it's long history.
* I assume that you refer specifically to the Abrahamic God that spoke to a barely literate goat herder on the side of a mountain in ancient Palestine, raped some woman who was apparently a virgin despite living with her husband, and then watched his illegitimate son get executed, right? Otherwise you could be speaking of any God. Lets say, Zeus. I like Zeus. He's the kind of womanising, lightning-bolt throwing God I can relate to! Some of his human consorts were even awake when he impregnated them -- what a gentleman! If we're going to start making assumptions that "the cause of the universe" must be a specific God, lets pick a good one!
Re:So lots of things. (Score:2, Informative)
I have a fair bit of experience with these genome thingees and it being saturday night I have been drinking some complex carbohydrates mixed with alcohol so the activation energy for posting to slashdot has been reduced (normally most people alive would have something better to do- i know I do). Now, plant genomes expand for two reasons 1) polyploidy events - where the genome is oops accidently doubled (soybean), or 2) massive transposon expansion where small bits are copied many times to give a big genome (eg maize). It sounds like P. japonica is of the #2 variety, ie a small genome of a flowering plant that as been expanded over time by transposons and lost its ability to prune them back out again. So to answer the parents question: It is unlikely to prove radiation resistant as most transposon expanded genomes still only maintain a single copy (x2 for a diploid) of each gene, so a vital function is easily disrupted by radiation induced mutations. If however, P. japonica was massively polyploid, then perhaps it would offer so additional radiation protection- but as the polyploid state, is for most sexually reproducing plants, a temporary state, it could very likely collapse back down into a non-radition protected species quite quickly over time.
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:2, Informative)
The universe had a beginning
[Premise I] HadBeginning(Universe) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
A widespread assumption that can reasonably be introduced as a premise.
Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else
[Premise II] HadBeginning(x) -> CausedBy(x, y) ^ x != y (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
Not neccessarily something I agree with but you can of course introduce any premise you like.
Therefore, the universe was caused by something else (a creator)
[Sentence III] CausedBySomething(Universe, y) ^ x != y (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
This sentence follows from the premises you introduced.
Every part of the universe is dependent
[Premise IV] \forall x \in Universe: Dependent(x, y) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
I assume you meant "dependent on something". Still, there's no reason not to allow this new premise.
If every part is dependent, then the whole universe must also be dependent
[Premise V] \forall x \in Universe: Dependent(x, y) -> Dependent(Universe, y) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
Since this follows from nothing you introduced so far, I assume you want to introduce it as a new premise.
Therefore, the whole universe is dependent for existence right now on some Independent Being
[Sentence VI] Dependent(Universe, y) ^ x != y (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
You made an error here. There are no premises from which follows that the universe must be dependent on an Independent Being. It could also be dependent on itself or a part of itself.
Every event that had a beginning had a sufficient cause
[Premise VII] HadBeginning(x) -> HadSufficientCause(x) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
I don't see why we shouldn't introduce this premise, even though it might have been better style to introduce all the basic premises first.
The universe had a beginning
You just repeated sentence I.
Therefore, the universe had a sufficient Cause
[Sentence VII] HadBeginning(Universe) -> HadSufficientCause(Universe) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
This follows from the premises I and VII.
Every effect has a cause
[Premise VIII] IsEffect(x) -> HasCause(x) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
Premise added. (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
The universe is an effect
[Premise IX] IsEffect(Universe) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
Premise added. (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
Therefore, the universe has a Cause
[Sentence X] HasCause(Universe) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
This follows from the premises VIII and IX.
An infinite number of moments cannot be traversed
If an infinite number of moments had to elapse before today, then today would never have come
But today has come
Therefore, an infinite number of moments have not elapsed before today (i.e., the universe had a beginning)
I'm going to skip assigning sentences to these since all you did with them was to restate premise I.
But whatever has a beginning is caused by something else
Hence, there must be a Cause (Creator) of the universe
These two sentences are just repetitions of premise II and sentence III.
An actual infinite cannot exist
[Premise XI] !\is x: Infinite(x) (Slashdot thinks my lines are too short.)
Given the fact that (for example) the set of rationa
I Am Honored to Have Made Your Signature (Score:2, Informative)
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
That's the only part of your post that wasn't stark raving stupidity. I understand you don't like me. That's fine, I'm even happy that you don't like me. Because your behavior is beyond help. You copy amazon reviews as comments [slashdot.org] (and I've called you out on it [slashdot.org] because you keep doing it). And I'm calling you out again. The above post that you put up there is copy pasted from creation.com [creation.com]. You can't even come up with your own troll posts.
... and yet you login to relay these ramblings to us. Does not compute.
You have the weird CmdrTaco sexual fetishes under your name [slashdot.org]. You manage to pack homophobia and xenophobia all into one post [slashdot.org]. You are well versed in the art of cruise control for awesome [slashdot.org]. You're all over the road in the spectrum of what's wrong with posts on Slashdot
I'm honored to be so diametrically opposed to you that you must call me an idiot in your sig but seriously what drives you, man?
repetitive (Score:4, Informative)
Large plant genomes tend to be polyploid (>2 copies of chromosomes) and full of repetitive elements. In other words, the overall complexity is similar to other plants, even though the total size is much larger.