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."
Typo? (Score:1, Funny)
Dang it. I read it as "Largest Gnome Ever". My brain was already thinking: "WTF? Why would someone need a large desktop manager? Larger than what?" Then, I read the summary. All became clear.
screw that story, here's a real Largest Gnome Ever (Score:2)
http://www.kcci.com/r/23101808/detail.html [kcci.com]
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I saw that as Needling compression yokes are original and hilarious. but you know, sometimes a hypodermic needle is just the thing to force the valve open, you shouldn't make fun of improvisers.
Picture (Score:5, Funny)
Since the article was light on visuals, I found a picture [rapha.cc] of the largest genome ever.
Obviously: (Score:2, Funny)
"Does ist need a Multipass...?"
Thanks for the warning. (Score:2, Funny)
I'm glad they warned me. I was considering enlarging my genome, but now that I know the dangers I guess I'll pass.
er what (Score:2, Offtopic)
How big is this flower .... ?
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If the DNA was stretched out, and unpacked, then yes, it could be that tall. The DNA in each one of your cells, and in turn, each one of the cells of this plant, is highly packed through the use of histones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histones) and supercoiling. So what would take a great deal of space, ends up being quite small. That is also how you get those wonderful little shapes of the chromosomes as well. Not all the DNA needs to be exposed all the time. When the time comes to transcribe, then it is
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It's as tall as Big Ben - a really big bell in St. Stephen's Tower, Westminster.
Weird unit of measurement, but there we go.
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Its fine laughing at foreigners (especially Americans) for getting things wrong that the British can get right: how to pronounce Cholmondley or Kirkcudbright (or even Edinburgh).
The problem with "what is Big Ben?" is that the British usually get it wrong as well.
Largest Genome ever (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Largest Genome ever (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, they always say that if you have a small genome.
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Yeah, they always say that if you have a small genome.
What do they say if you have the largest genome in the world?
"Not tonight dear, I have a headache."
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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: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.
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It's a nickname, it means whatever people agree it means. And most people understand the the tower meaning just fine. The fact people had to post pointing out it is the nickname of the bell indicates even they knew what was meant (or else they wouldn't have had to point it out). So it communicated the intended meaning just fine.
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Ben Roethlisberger is as big as a womp rat?
Probably multiploid (Score:4, Interesting)
think i saw this before... (Score:5, Funny)
In short (Score:2)
I misread the title... (Score:2)
And started thinking about what size a gnome must be in order to not be a gnome.
comression (Score:2)
Thats Big (Score:3, Funny)
Ding Dong (Score:1, Redundant)
Useless comparison (Score:2, Funny)
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The summary says "149 billion base pairs". I agree that it's probably 1E9 in a billion in this context, so 1.49E11 base pairs. Each base pair is 2 bits - 2.98E11 bits. 3.725E10 bytes (assuming 8 bits per byte, and stating it to save the other pedants pointing it out).
So 34.7GB to 3 s.f., which is all we can justify with 3 s.f. in the original figure. Far too small to be worth expressing in Libraries of Congress.
And of course, that's assuming that most of it isn't just redundant copies. The actual informatio
Same as bloated code (Score:2)
Bloated code is unmaintenable.
Likewise, a bloated genome means it's hard to evolve.
Largest Gnome Ever (Score:2)
Ok, sure it sounds stupid when you say it out loud, but dammit for a second there...
Thanks for the warning about big genomes (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks for the warning; I'll remember it when designing future plant species.
- God
congratulations, we've got a new Unit (Score:3, Funny)
Congratulations, we now have a new unit of measurement to join the myriad:
* Libraries of Congress
* Landmasses of Texas
* States of Massachusetts
* California Economies
* Lines of Code
* Man-Hours
* Kilobits per second
Welcome to the fold, Big Bens!
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If the unit refers to the bell, it is only slightly taller then an average person. If the unit refers to the clock tower itself, it is close to a football field. It would seem this unit is redundant.
biggest genome I've ever seen! (Score:1)
Someone phone Blizzard (Score:1, Redundant)
So not world of warcraft? (Score:2)
For a moment there I thought it was "Largest Gnome Ever"!
Bloatware... (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly humans are more efficiently coded.
indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
you joke, but that's indeed the case :
- were're hot blooded and thermally regulated
- we live in an environment with a very narrow varability
(i mean the direct environment next to our skin. When it's cold outdoor, we just put more clothes on, instead of going out naked)
thus our enzymes have only to work in a very specific range of conditions. Unlike this plant which has to sustain a wide range of variations, and thus needs lots of different genes coding for similar proteins,but each optimised for a slightly
Godzilla (Score:2)
The researchers warn however that big genomes tend to be a liability:
That is until it's irradiated in a nuclear test and goes all Godzilla on us
OP raises an important question: (Score:2)
"plants with lots of DNA have more trouble tolerating pollution and extreme climatic extinction"
What kind of genome do you need to survive extinction?
Not under Wikipedia's watch! (Score:2, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome#Comparison_of_different_genome_sizes [wikipedia.org]
Which one is trustworthy?
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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.
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Never seen that quote, I like. Very valid and very true.
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“I contend we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”- Stephen F. Roberts
I wonder if that was a smart argument originally, or if it completely missed the point, but I bet many of the atheists don't understand it when they read it.
Better way to put it would be "I contend we are both same kind of believers, even though I'm an atheist and you're not. You have religious faith in the god(s) you know in your heart to exist. So do I."
Though that doesn't yet account for the two groups of atheists, those who have faith that there is no god, and those who just don't have faith in any god.
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I'm an Omnist, you insensitive clod.
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Exactly! We have a designated source of nonsense. Ad-libbing will not be tolerated.
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Because you don't know a reply on that?
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:5, Informative)
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Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else
You fail right there.
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What about Carl Sagan's argument?
He argued (in 'Cosmos') that if it was necessary to postulate a cause for the universe, it was necessary to postulate a cause for whatever caused the universe, and if it was not necessary to claim there was a cause for "God", it was also not necessary to claim a cause for the universe. But not 15 pages before he made that claim, he discussed the old Steady State theory and how it was succeeded by the Big Bang model. Sagan allowed the steady state to be causeless, since there
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All we can infer from Big Bang theory is that the current state of the observable universe originated from a single point of space some 13.5 billion years ago, and has expanded out from that point ever since.
It makes no judgement on what the universe looked like immediately before, or it's cause. Possibilities such as a cyclical universe, or the observable universe as part of a greater whole (such as a multiverse), are not ruled out by BB theory (and predicted by some theories, such as M-String theory).
The
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Wouldn"t "God" be more like the steady state than the big bang (at least as most religions define God)?
I take issue with that statement. It should read "at least as most monotheistic religions define God". Only a few religions are monotheistic at all, most of them being in the tradition of Zoroastrism.
Many other religions don't have a problem with the sudden appearence of a god and his disappearance again. So those religions would rather tend to a big bang universe. The Greek with their aeons would even accept the idea of several universes appearing in a big bang and dissappearing again to make room for a ne
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The Universe is defined as something of which no greater can be conceived.
Such a thing can be conceived.
If there were no such thing in reality, then a greater thing—namely, a thing than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists—can be conceived.
Yet nothing can be greater than a thing than which no greater can be conceived.
Therefore a thing than which no greater can be conceived—i.e., the Universe—must exist.
The Universe is the entity of which nothing greater can be thought.
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Please clarify and let me know how I can subscribe to your newsletter. (Assuming you are not a lightning struck smudge.)
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Well first off TLDR.. I did read the first few lines though, and you have a logic issue.
Well you said:
Anything that had a beginning must have been caused by something else
Therefore, the universe was caused by something else (a creator)
Our universe could easily have been created by another universe. We could be living inside a black hole.
Now I know your response.. What created the other universe? That would be another logical fallacy. Who created the creator would be my reply.
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The answer is simple:w
The earth was created by god. god was created by a giant frog. the giant frog was created by robotic jesus.
And all those lies were created by man, in particular, certain individuals who where trying to control the rest of the population.
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The Greek philosopher Thrasymachus said: With religion, the clever manipulate the foolish.
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Thrasymachus wasn't as much as a philosopher as a giant douche invented to help Plato drive home some points in his Republic. Other tidbits from Thrasymachus: "Justice" is little more than getting ahead, and the "just" will stab anyone in the back should it benefit them.
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Look! A Vim user!
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The answer is simple:w
Are you typing your slashdot comment with vi?
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But I, for one, do use vi(m) to post on
This is thank's to this very nice firefox addon [mozilla.org]
You might want to try it
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Damn! Nop, I'm an Emacs user, but I posted that comment from my cellphone. I hate touchscreen keyboards.
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The earth was created by god. god was created by a giant frog. the giant frog was created by robotic jesus.
And all those lies were created by man, in particular, certain individuals who where trying to control the rest of the population.
You can't fool me, Mr. James. It's frogs all the way down.
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We could be living inside a black hole.
If so, then is it still black?
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It's a good thing you didn't read further, though; the logic only gets more and more shaky as the proof goes on. For example, in the end the proof introduces "and this cause we're talking about is the Christian god" as a premise (well, two premises actually) and then uses that premise to derive "God exists". A shorter version that requires far fewer unprovable premises
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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 reaso
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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] \
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.
You have the weird CmdrTaco sexual fetishes unde [slashdot.org]
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Among the pervasive flaws in your arguments is the failure to understand Zeno's Paradox.
Generally, your statements are huge masses of non sequiturs. Look at 7.6
Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact? (Score:4, Insightful)
Other people spoke of the other parts of this already, but I thought I'd make a point I rarely see:
When people speak of religion being the source of morality, it becomes obvious they never actually read the bible. In it, Moses, Abraham and a few other people actually argue with God and get him to change his mind on smiting some people. If they can argue with God on smiting, then they must have a source of morality that's not God, because otherwise whatever God says is the moral thing, and there can't be an argument.
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I suppose there's also a matter of scale, when you're probably not going to live to see 30, waiting till 25 seems a bit of a stretch.
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A second reason was death in childbirth, due to infections because of the unclean environment. It makes no difference if you die at 18 after giving birth or at 36 after giving birth.
So lots of things. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, a large genome generally means lots of redundancy. Lots of redundancy is theorized to mean high resistance to radiation. This plant should, therefore, be highly resistant. That is potentially quite useful knowledge. Back in the days when people looked to hydroponics and Biosphere 2 as a way of getting oxygen into an artificial environment, they forgot to take into consideration that most plantlife won't cope with the radiation on, say, Mars. In order to be able to get a livable environment for humans, you must first create a livable environment for the plants needed. Obvious solution - use rad-resistant plants as part of an initial program for building up the environment.
Once you've got an artificial environment that is biologically stable and sustaining good O:CO2 ratios for plantlife, you can look to advancing that environment. I'd suggest having a two layer dome, with the gap between the inner dome and outer dome flooded at as high a pressure as the domes can take something that'll filter the radiation. By having an organic system that can cope, you can take your time getting it right. Regardless of what is actually done, these plants will provide a rich topsoil that will be valuable to the plants that are actually needed by humans.
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Well, a large genome generally means lots of redundancy.
You said "generally", so I'm not jumping on you for this, but "how do we know"? Who is to say the plant doesn't have hundreds of meters of codings for proteins that are no longer useful to the species? We only just sequenced the human genome a few years ago. This thing is 50 times as long. (Yeah, Moore's law is good stuff for the biotech industry, so it might be possible to sequence this plant in under a year, say, but still)
So if there are hundred
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We don't know, until someone tries an experiment (eg: analyzes the genome, takes it to some relatively unshielded part of the IIS, or drops seedlings from a transport plane over Chernobyl).
Indeed, it is because we don't know - and because exceptions are bound to happen - that I used the term "generally". Right now, we know it's a great candidate for testing what we think we know. At 50x the genome, it should be possible to test many ideas out about how the genome evolves.
In fact, if it turns out that there
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not-so-exciting ... dinosaur geneticist
Does not compute.
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Gene sequencing speed/cost is moving faster than Moore's law [forbes.com]
This system [454.com] does 400-600 million base pairs per 10 hour run.
149,000,000,000bp/400,000,000bp/run ~ 373 runs
3,730 hours ~ 155 days
I don't how long setup times between runs might be or what other factors are involved, though. On the other hand, a big lab would have more than one sequencer.
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Wouldn't filling the gap between the domes with water do the job? I mean water does a great job of stopping radiation anyways and I'm sure there's other inventive things that could be done with that.
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Water would work, but water is also very very heavy. On the other hand, if the domes could be made strong enough to support sufficient water, you'd have a great way to create artificial rain via sprinklers.
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While you can't discount it completely, Mars is only about 10% of the mass of Earth so weight is not such as big a problem. On a planet heavier than Earth it could be worse though...
On a planet where water is hard to find you might want to use something else as your shielding too.
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Re:So lots of things. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, a large genome generally means lots of redundancy. Lots of redundancy is theorized to mean high resistance to radiation.
Another reason why plants have large genomes is that they tend to duplicate their genomes. One theory is that it makes speciation easier.
Mind you, it's not as if the designer said, "I'll duplicate plant genomes to make it easier for them to separate into species." They just duplicate and it works out well.
Apparently plants can double their genomes without the disasterous consequences that it has in animal cells. Animal cells don't double their entire genome unless they're really messed up, like in cancer, and then they're swiftly disposed of.
polyploidy (Score:2)
polyploidy, when the whole genome is duplicated (every single chromosome, unlike trisomy where 1 pair of chromosome has one of the two in 2 copies instead),isn't that much problematic because all the genetic material is evenly duplicated, there is no disbalance with some genes with more copies as the others (unlike trisomy, again).
this only leads to a nucleus having more DNA material, and thus being bigger. As in lots of situations cells tend to evaluate their size and growth stage based on the ratio of the
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Also animal cells can multiply their genomes. Some butterflies for instance are known to appear with polyploid chromosome sets. One of the main reason why this plant has such a large number of genes is that it is an alloploid - a polyploid hybrid of at least four other species of plants. It is basicly a big heap of ammassed genes not yet sorted out.
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Super-large plant genomes are usually the result of chromosome-doubling. This is usually quite fatal to animals, but plants tolerate it well, and often use it to create new genes as duplicates are free to evolve in new directions. Most of the extra genes are simply redundant, however, and do nothing but consume resources. If a plant species undergoes repeated doublings it can quickly become the genomic monstrosity we have here, which is likely to become extinct if it does not fix itself.
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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
Not so fast (Score:2)
A large genome might mean more copies of the same protein encoded, but it might also mean more proteins to do the same job.
There could be a lot of "two step" processes, where a one step process is possible.
There could be a mutation which generates an extra lethal chemical. Dominate genes exist, and they are not always beneficial.
I'd stick with the article's premise that while there's more possibility to resist failure, there's also more moving parts to fail, and the cost to replicate the redundancies is mo
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I'm sorry but that is just the biggest load of nonsense ever encountered. First and foremost, there is no such thing as complete redundancy in genomic information. THe simplest explanation is that there is exactly zero evolutionary benefit of it, as destruction of a redundant copy does not reduce fitness but in fact increases it due to reduced energy requirement to copy the redundant pair in mitosis. In other words, the redundant copy is removed from the genepool very quickly. There are more elaborate reaso
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If intelligent design exists, that plant may store the genome of 49 different people besides its own.
I guess it is just spaghetti, but still...