Genome Surprise 292
Catskul writes "Along with the news that the polished and (more nearly) complete human genome being published Monday, comes a surprising observation about the genome: We have substantially fewer genes than expected; between 27,000 and 40,000 as compared to an original estimate of 140,000." Update: 04/14 01:22 GMT by T : For everyone who can't look at a Z, headline updated with an S in "surprise."
Genome Surprize (Score:5, Funny)
1 genome (preferably human)
4 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup shredded Jack cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 chopped peeled green chiles
One 16-ounce package frozen hash browns
Shaker of paprika --dust top of casserole just before putting in oven - looks pretty.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a small casserole dish with vegetable oil spray, 7 to 8 inches square or round. Line the pan with 1/2-inch layer of potatoes. Beat eggs. Add dry ingredients and beat well. Blend in remaining ingredients. Batter will be lumpy. Pour in dish and bake 25-30 minutes.
Serves 4.
Re:Genome Surprize (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Genome Surprize - Speaking of Emeril (Score:3, Funny)
Bam!! [urbandictionary.com]
Sobstantially fewer? (Score:2)
What 140,000 +/- 113,000???? that seems a bit bigger.
What I want to know is if these are counting genes which are active in humans (i.e. activated by master genes) or are inactive genes (say for a monkey-like tail
I suspect I should spend more time reading the article
Re:Sobstantially fewer? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd see genes like those for a tail as being a
Re:Sobstantially fewer? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sobstantially fewer? (Score:2)
We have about as many genes as a mouse... but is the mouse _using_ all of its genes? Maybe the mouse is like a souped up Pentium 4 running WordPerfect 5.1 under DOS... and we're like the same Pentium 4 running AutoCAD under Windows XP.
Re:Substantially fewer? (Score:2)
Hold up! The genome has been patented, or parts of it anyway [essential.org]. This means that if you procreate you are guilty of distributing patented material without a license. As the joke goes, sex is a misdemeanor, da more I miss, da meaner I get.
This might be some sort of DMCA violation (Dont Make Children Americans) so I suggest everyone not have sex until the courts have hashed this out.
Ok, bad jokes, but its not open source either, until we ta
I thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I thought so. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I thought so. (Score:3, Informative)
What was your point? That you're pontificating without even high-school knowledge on the subject?
Well I suppose that's par for the course on slashdot.
Re:I thought so. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
Re:I thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
The small number of genes is significant [because it means] we're not hard-wired
It means no such thing! It could just mean that fewer genes are necessary to hard-wire us. Nobody really knows how much effect particular genes have on us, so saying that 140,000 would be enough but 40,000 isn't enough is just spewing hot air.
The low number of genes means humans have as few as 300 more genes than a mouse and only twice the genes of the fruit fly. "A lot of people will find that philosophically disturbing," says theoretical biologist Jean-Michel Claverie
I don't see why they should. More genes == more superiority? Who made up that rule? How about "better genes == more superiority"?
The low number of genes [means] that there is no genetic basis for race.
Totally not true. Of course race has a genetic basis. It is inherited, after all. Black people have black children. It just means that the number of genes necessary to determine race is smaller than we thought.
I don't think it's any mystery. We're NOT "so much more complex!" The only part of us that is more complex is our brains. And animals have brains too, some of which are quite sophisticated by any measure of complexity.
Looks like people are having a field day speculating about what this low number could mean. I think it just means that we were wrong before, and we still don't have a clue about how big an effect single genes can really have on an organism.
Re:I thought so. (Score:2, Interesting)
Humans have allways been good at explaining why they are the better than som
Re:I thought so. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see why they should. More genes == more superiority? Who made up that rule?
The brightest minds of biology did, over 10 years ago... and so the central dogma of biology ("one gene => one protein => one function") was taught to a generation of students.
Of course, this completely misses two of the biggest results in the last few years: the acknowledgment of alternative splicing as a common phenomenon (10 years ago, people thought it happened in 5% of human genes, now we know it's more like 50%) and the identification of miRNAs as regulators of gene function.
But it's so hard to argue with dogma...
Re:I thought so. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry. The "Central Dogma" is DNA->RNA->protein. Still true. Only the ignorant have misinterpreted it that way.
(It's also been added to. For example we now know that occasionally RNA->DNA and once in a great while DNA->protein.)
Re:I thought so. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually that is not the central dogma of biology. The central dogma is DNA -> RNA -> Polypeptide (Ref: Russell, Genetics, 1998). The one-gene one-enzyme hypothesis was proposed a long time ago, and yes it did earn a Nobel Prize, but it has since been altered to the one-gene one-polypeptide hypothesis. Gene expression h
Re:I thought so. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were talking about skin colour, then this would make sense. But you are speaking about 'race', which is a word that is used to refer to a fuzzy concept that has no clear scientific definition. You might as well have said "Of course phlogiston flows. Things do change temperature, after all."
HAHAHA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:HAHAHA (Score:2)
Or are we to be eaten by a very angry Elitegroup product?
Re:I thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
What the heck does "better genes" mean? For that matter, what does "more superiority"? Despite what everyone seems to want, evolution is not a moralistic process! There is no "superior" or "inferior". At best, there is "more fit" and "less fit" -- and even that is strongly location-dependent and time-evolving. In terms of survival fitness, it can be argued that, say, bacteria -- or insects -- way outperform humans. Sure, they don't build cathedrals or rocket ships, but what the heck does evolution care?
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
It cares quite a bit, as these tools help us get the basics of life, like food watter and sex.
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
But evolution doesn't care that we build rocket ships; it cares only about the food, water, and sex -- and really, not so much about the food and water. We get no special bonus points for achieving art, from an evolutionary standpoint; evolution has no use for art as art but only as reproductive-success enhancer.
Of course this is just one reason why it's silly to use evolution as a groun
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
Errata (Score:2)
H. Vulgare is "barley", while Triticum Aestivum is "bread wheat".
Sorry about that.
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
Totally not true. Of course race has a genetic basis. It is inherited, after all. Black people have black children. It just means that the number of genes necessary to determine race is smaller than we thought.
There are studies (none of which I have a reference to at hand, sadly, so you'll have to take this as a hypothesis and do the research for my lazy ass this morning), that suggest race is an evolutionary adaptation to climate
Re:I thought so. (Score:3, Interesting)
What are north africans? Are they black? "Yes," says the Norwegian racist, "because they don't have pink skin and blue eyes." "No," says the Kenyan racist, "because they have straight hair, and their skin is too light."
And so on, and on, for central asians (are they Caucasian, or
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
What's a racial characteristic? Any gene variant is going to appear in a different percentage of people in different groups. Sickle cell amenia is common in north Africans and Italians, but not southern Africans. Black skin is common in Africans but not Italians. Why is black skin a racial characteristic and sickle cell amenia isn't?
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
Re:I thought so. (Score:5, Informative)
The modern concept of race is that groups of people that are readily identifiable via a few physical traits (primarily skin color, but also face and eye shape, height, etc.) are more closely genetically related, on average, to each other than to they are to other groups.
This has been proven to be false.
It doesn't have to be false. Populations do diverge genetically, that's certain. And human populations could have diverged in ways that are expressed uniquely as gross anatomical differences. But they haven't.
A key word in that previous paragraph is "uniquely". You see, for something like skin color to be a reliable indicator of genetic relatedness, the skin color has to have a one-to-one correspondence with the genetic variation that causes it.[1] For example, I happen to have a rare genetic disease that is a mutation on the gene that controls collagen. As far as anyone knows, this mutation exists only among a few people in the world that have a common ancestor. So if you find this mutation, then you've found someone related to me. Put another way, if you find someone with the disease I have, they're related to me.
In contrast, there are other mutations on the collagen gene that exist among many unrelated people. It's a common mutation. If you find someone with that corresponding disease, there's no guarantee that they're related to someone else with that disease.
Now, the problem is that all of the features that are associated with how people define "race" are like the latter example, not the former. That is, genetically unrelated people can have dark skin. Dark skin can and has arisen among unrelated populations. Worse, dark and light skin has arisen among relatively closely related populations such that a given light skinned population is more closely related to a given dark skinned population than it is to another light skinned population. So, looking at the human race as a whole, skin color is an unreliable indicator of genetic relatedness.
Within a population that is reasonably restricted, however, it can be a reliable indicator of relatedness. Almost all African Americans have a common ancestor from west Africa. But west Africans are not closely related to some other dark skinned Africans. So, for example, while African Americans share a tendency to having the gene that causes sickle cell anemia, other dark skinned people--including many other African peoples--do not.
The reason this is all very important is because the modern idea of race has been assumed to have been validated on the basis of genetics. Furthermore, since it's assumed that members of a "race" are closely related genetically, and since it's obviously true that genetically closely related individuals are likely to share a lot of traits, it's been assumed that members of a race share lots of similar traits. Thus, people have argued about gross differences between races in the matter of intelligence, athletic ability, temperment, what have you. And if race did reliably indicate genetic relatedness, then these assumptions might have some merit. But since race is not an indicator of genetic relatedness, it can't be (in this respect[2]) an indicator of similarity in these traits.
Since the whole modern notion of race rests upon this assumption of relatedness and shared traits, and that notion is false, this is why some people say that the concept of race is scientifically false. They're not saying that genetics is false, or that genes don't control the expression of the various features associated with race. They are saying that the particular kind of relationship imagined between genetics and race doesn't exist.
And, in the end, what you're left with is a very messy sociological conception of race which has everything to do with local cultural standards and nothing at all to do with genetics in a meaningful way.
Re:I thought so. (Score:4, Insightful)
It may exist in sociology, but not in genetics. Race is not a genetically valid concept. It is true that there are genetic differences between groups, but genetic studies have found that the amount of variation WITHIN each group is larger than that AMONG various groups. Attempts to predict race/ethnicity etc. from genetic sequence have all failed. The few differences among our genes that produce physically visible traits are tiny compared to the number of possible variations visible at the molecular level.
Re:I thought so. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I thought so. (Score:2)
I can't be sure in this case, but it's not unusual for reporters to quote out of context and to take the most simplistic and sensational comments out of a long interview, eliminating the more scientifically measured and difficult to understand parts in favor of "sound bites".... just something to consider.
Re:It's Just like Programming (Score:3, Funny)
Beware (Score:4, Interesting)
This kind of news always makes me wary. Did the reporters mean what the author had in mind? Yes, when it comes to genetics I am more suspicious, after all, as a political tool it is too powerful for lunatics to be based on empty air; if you see what I mean.
Implications (Score:3, Funny)
Not a new observation (Score:5, Informative)
This observation was already made a couple of years back when the first draft was published. Note the date on the second link.
Just for comparison's sake... (Score:2)
Kidding aside, a lot of the purported "implications" of the finding aren't exactly new. From the article:
That's nothing new, though - scientists have known a long time there's no scientif
Re:Just for comparison's sake... (Score:5, Informative)
Not to argue with your basic idea there, but how does culture determine the similarities then? The fact that most native Africans have dark skin, most Northern Europeans are relatively fair skinned, and most Asians are notably shorter than Native Americans? There has to be some genes doing something. Or some other mechanism we have yet to discover.
Our perception of 'race' is surely more exaggerated than the actual genetic differences alone justify, but race is more than genes. For instance: dictionary.com defines race as:
* A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.
* A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.
* A genealogical line; a lineage.
* Humans considered as a group.
So race is neither purely genetic, nor purely cultural. We forget that sometimes.
Re:Just for comparison's sake... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dark-skinned is not a race. "Black" is a race -- and very few black people have actual black skin (much less black teeth!). Races are cultural constructs that may include genetic/physical characteristics in their definitions. Some physical characteristics are often considered (e.g. skin color) and some (earlobe attatchment, blood type) are generally ignored. Furthermore:
What's probably most significant, though, is that the races which do correspond to genetic traits make no sense as biological characterizations. They don't match actual genetic difference groups at all. This is what is meant by the statement that races are purely cultural.
Missed the point (Score:2)
But in fact culture does shape races, up to a point. For example, if you have a tribe (or country, or religion, etc.) where green-eyed women are considered "better", they will have
Re:Just for comparison's sake... (Score:2)
no no no. it doesnt prove that all to me. it mainly proves we don't know as much about genes as we thought. Or its not just the individual genes, but the interaction between them. Or something else we don't understand yet. My point was its obviously NOT just the number of genes that
Re:Just for comparison's sake... (Score:3, Interesting)
That may be, but race is still interesting.
Race is not much more than a way of classifying people based on appearance. It might also hint at a shared cultural background, but not always. But it is still potentially useful.
Nobody would say that the colour of a car should have anything to do with its handling. It's just paint, and has nothing to do with the insides. On the other hand, there are far more red sportscars than there are powder-blue ones.
If people are willing to accept that, maybe th
Re:Just for comparison's sake... (Score:2)
That's because people can chose the color of their car. People cannot chose the color of their skin.
Also, my car is light blue and it could kick your cars ass.
So race is nurture, not nature? (Score:2)
Re:Political correctness again loses against reali (Score:2, Insightful)
The point is that the genetic differences behind our racial distinctions are really quite miniscule. The closer you look at them, the harder it is to divide humans into well-defined categories. It is you, I'm afraid, who are holding to a politically-motivated viewpoint that is divorced from reality.
Racing (Score:2)
That surprising observation is old news (Score:5, Informative)
I dunno about your perception of time, but how does an 12 February 01 observation come along with an 14 April 03 article?
Subscriber benefits (Score:3, Funny)
I think we're really starting to see it...
To throw some light on the subject.... (Score:5, Informative)
DNA->RNA->Protein<BR><BR>
remember
So yes, there are only 40,000 "genes" but closer to 140,000 gene products.
Re:To throw some light on the subject.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:To throw some light on the subject.... (Score:2, Funny)
Duh. It's breaker, breaker.
And it's usually followed by "good buddy" and "ten-four, over and out."
Haven't you seen the dukes of hazard?
Re:To throw some light on the subject.... (Score:4, Funny)
" mean?"
Duh. It's breaker, breaker.
And it's usually followed by "good buddy" and "ten-four, over and out."
Haven't you seen the dukes of hazard?
So I presume this <br> is a recessive gene that only turns up with a lot of inbreeding, therefore generally more common in the southern states?
Re:To throw some light on the subject.... (Score:2)
This has been known for a while (Score:3, Informative)
From what I'm told, anyway, these aren't genes as such, just ORFs. We don't know what they all do, and we won't for a very long time.
What is news is that we're so very close to completing it.
Also in other news, the SARS virus has been sequenced. (Which should give you an idea of the difference in complexity).
See here: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/13/1050172
NIce!!! (Score:2)
quite an interesting comparison considering that the fruit fly is probably THE most genetically experimented on entity. this puts us (hu-mans) only a little further down the road, I can't wait. Where do I sign up for my bigger, faster, stronger, leaner, money making whatevers?
Re:NIce!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
"The low number of genes means humans have as few as 300 more genes than a mouse and only twice the genes of the fruit fly. "A lot of people will find that philosophically disturbing," says theoretical biologist Jean-Michel Claverie of France's national research centre in Marseille."
Jean-Michel has obviously never heard of the idea of exponential complexity. The difference between (as a comparison) 2^15,000 and 2^30,000 is a real kicker.
This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)
By the way, I don't for a moment believe this "completion" crap - us poor bioinformaticists will still be digging errors out in ten years. And this doesn't take into account the many different polymorphisms that are as essential to understanding human genomics as the raw sequence is. That's just the way sequencing works, and it pisses me off to hear non-experts bloviate about the profound importance of the genome. It'll take years for it to become fully useful. I don't have a problem with this, because most scientific discoveries are like that, but the public seems to think that we can now cure cancer and tell how an embryo will develop. Right now it's just raw data, not results.
One other thing that bugged me:
But researchers will have to wait up to a year for the first analysis of it. "We're still discussing the timing on this," Collins says. A broad analysis could be published, or detailed chromosome-by-chromosome papers could be released.
Um, I know of quite a few people doing analyses of the entire genome already. . .
Re:This is news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Couple that with the fact that even though we have a blue print for "parts" we still don't have much of and idea as to what they do, how they work or how they interact together, and biologists will have their work cut out for them for quite some time.
That will be the interesting part. Getting the genome down is a huge acomplishment and an increibly powerful tool.
Apparentlysss (Score:4, Funny)
Scientists still haven't found the gene for bad spelling...
Article's numbers not clear (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Article's numbers not clear (Score:2)
This does not mean we're simple (Score:4, Funny)
27k base pairs you say? Each one being one of a possible four, making it representable with two bits? Faboo... You can store a complete human blueprint in under 14KB. Lets start encoding and launching our codes all over creation, as self-extracting executables, of course. Homo Sapiens cum Code Red. Digital panspermia.
Re:This does not mean we're simple (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This does not mean we're simple (Score:4, Informative)
You're right, it's a hell of a lot more than 15 K, but it's still pretty transportable.
Re:This does not mean we're simple (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This does not mean we're simple (Score:2)
Nature tries to optimize to remove unnecessary baggage. I'd assume that at least some of that "useless" DNA has some sort of purpose, probably working in some way we haven't discovered yet.
Suddenly (Score:5, Funny)
Damn you scientists.
Re:Suddenly (Score:2)
Background Info (Score:5, Informative)
Begun formally in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome Project is a 13-year effort coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. The project originally was planned to last 15 years, but rapid technological advances have accelerated the expected completion date to 2003. Project goals [ornl.gov] are to
- identify all the approximate 30,000 genes in human DNA,
- determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs
that make up human DNA,
- store this information in databases,
- improve tools for data analysis,
- transfer related technologies to the private sector, and
- address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may
arise from the project.
To help achieve these goals, researchers also are studying the genetic makeup of several nonhuman organisms. These include the common human gut bacterium Escherichia coli, the fruit fly, and the laboratory mouse.A unique aspect of the U.S. Human Genome Project is that it is the first large scientific undertaking to address the ELSI implications that may arise from the project.
Another important feature of the project is the federal government's long-standing dedication to the transfer of technology to the private sector. By licensing technologies to private companies and awarding grants for innovative research, the project is catalyzing the multibillion-dollar U.S. biotechnology industry and fostering the development of new medical applications [ornl.gov].
Sequence and Analysis of the human genome working draft was published in February, 2001, in Nature and Science. See an index of these papers [ornl.gov] and learn more about the insights gained from them [ornl.gov].
For more background information on the U.S. Human Genome Project, see the following
What's a genome? And why is it important?
To understand more read
A day at the genome office (Score:3, Funny)
scientist 2: It was just here with the others next to my sandwich...Oh.
scientist 1: Great, you ate 40,001 through 140,000! Forget this.
scientist 2: But what'll I tell the press???
***
The less one makes declarative statements... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps in the future we'll get to see this next to:
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -Charles H. Duell
"640k should be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates
I grant that this particular case may seem less "philosophical" than the cases in the quotations above but a "stick a fork in it...it's done" mindset is not only arrogant but detrimental to science as well.
Re:The less one makes declarative statements... (Score:3, Informative)
Rest of the quote is that he, the director of the patent office, was requesting more funding, and that
"Anyone that would deny my must think that everything that can be invented has been invented"
Re:The less one makes declarative statements... (Score:2, Informative)
By BILL GATES
c.1996 Bloomberg Business News
QUESTION: I read in a newspaper that in 1981 you said, ``640K of memory should be enough for anybody.'' What did you mean when you said this?
ANSWER: I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time.
Huh? (Score:2)
I admit he's much smarter than me, but couldn't it just mean that each gene carries so much information as to make it deterministic?
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Because the concentrations of many gene regulatory proteins are so dilute/low, there exists significant fluctuations in the number of molecules that actually regulate the gene's expression. These fluctuations vary from time to time and from cell to cell, producing non-deterministic levels of gene expression. The non-determinism (called stochasticity) can cause some very interesting behavior that leads to numerous potential 'states' of gene expression versus a
Don't tell God... (Score:5, Funny)
Simplistic thinking (Score:3, Informative)
Epigenetics
Imprinting
Histone Code
Imprinting Histone Code
Various epigenetic (that is, above the DNA-bp level) states are epigenetically inherited. They often determine chromatin structure, and are involved in a war between maternal and paternal genomes, genetic conflict. And, they contribute to creating a much more cmplicated organism than the number of genes alone would indicate.
Also, it is important to notice that more complex eukaryotes tend to have more transcription factors, zinc-finger proteins, and so on and so forth. The number of regulatory proteins has mushroomed as organisms become more complicated. It is clear that one of the most important things in determining the complexity of organisms is the differential regulation of various genes.
The proteins are where the fun is at (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to undermine the significance at mapping the genes, but they're the first step. The next is proteins, the building blocks of life described in DNA. They do everything, so naturaly they are being studied closely by biologists and drug companies.
So what if there is fewer genes than expected? It means that the means of describing protiens is not linear. Protiens can fold four different ways, offering many different structural combinations.
The highest level biological system we understand completely is a
Re:The proteins are where the fun is at (Score:2)
And have been for years. Studying proteins in parallel ("proteomics"), however, is a fairly recent innovation, just as genomics grew out of molecular genetics. It'll take a while before we can study proteins at the same scale as genomes. There are efforts now to scale up the process of structure determination through what's (rather inappropriately) called "structural genomics" - I've been working in this fie
Gene advances. (Score:2, Flamebait)
(Sorry, I must have offended most
Re:Gene advances. (Score:2)
-- Scott Adams, The Dilbert Future
Re:Gene advances. (Score:2)
Darwin was a very insightful man, we would do well to remember that.
Re:Gene advances. (Score:2)
This "equal opportunity" idea didn't have much impact till the 18th Century (French and American Revolutions). Even then, it had little impact on daily life till perhaps post WWII. So this process, if it exists at all, has had little chance to degrade the human race, and that in only a few First World countries.
Look at some places much
The Real Human Genome Project (Score:5, Informative)
I let out an audible groan over the 'revelation' that the human genome contains at most 40,000 genes, compared to the original estimate of ~150,000. I was relieved when I noticed that the article linked to dated to 2001. This makes sense, since that discrepancy was first discussed during my courses over two years ago.
The other grain of salt that needs to taken is the idea of a "completed" genome. The human genome is nearly sequenced, however it the annotation of the genome that matters most. To place this into context, the genome of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is over 75% annotated. Currently only a small portion of the human genome is annotated, that is to say, the roads are mapped, and the streets (or in this case, genes) are identified and their function characterized. This is one of the most essential tasks still facing biologists today. Without knowing all the potential genes, as well as their function and expression patterns, the human genome is no better a guide than using a globe to navigate the streets of Toronto (or New York, take your pick).
As it has been mentioned before, I won't delve too far into the fact that a given stretch of DNA can code for genes in two different directions, and in three different "frames" per direction. On top of this, the mRNA produced from the DNA can be spliced in numerous ways. A single expanse of DNA can produce countless different proteins - and its proteins, not genes, that carry out all the functions our body needs to survive.
Humans are extremely complex, but as we go about our 'very' important lives, it's humbling to know that on the surface, we do not contain many more genes than some other 'lesser' forms of life on this planet.
Counting method (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Counting method (Score:2)
"Easy", no, but the methods are better than you think. It's been a while since I've read on this in detail, but there are three techniques which may be used, and which are usually combined:
1. De-novo gene finding. Genscan and its successor GenomeScan are good examples - they look for RNA sp
On the Topic of Determinism vs. Stochasticity... (Score:4, Informative)
The topic of stochastic gene expression is becoming more interesting recently because of further advances in studying single-cell gene expression and the design of genetic regulatory networks.
Because the concentrations of many gene regulatory proteins are so dilute/low, there exists significant fluctuations in the number of molecules that actually regulate the gene's expression. These fluctuations vary from time to time and from cell to cell, producing non-deterministic levels of gene expression. The non-determinism (called stochasticity) can cause some very interesting behavior that leads to numerous potential 'states' of gene expression versus a single, deterministic state.
So, on a very real basis, probability has a lot to do with how certain genes are expressed. Successful biological systems, however, hate random chance unless it's advantageous. These certain genes that utilize the internal noise of a "small" biological system do so because it gives some sort of advantage to them..either coding for numerous possible states with the least number of genes or for allowing the cell to randomly pick between possible states in order to create a heterogeneous cell population.
If you're interested in some scientific articles, try Adam Arkin's paper from 1998, detailing a stochastic simulation of a virus that attacks E. coli cells. The virus randomly selects whether it will replicate itself quickly and burst the cell open or integrate itself into the bacteria's genome and sit dormant. The probability of each event depends on the state of the bacteria at the time of infection. If the bacteria is starved, the virus goes dormant. If it's healthy, the virus goes into replication mode.
Salis
Ha! (Score:2)
On a more serious note, is anyone shocked to learn that our genetic code is compressed? Seems more efficient to me.
genomics is only the first step (Score:5, Informative)
Well... Duh. (Score:2, Informative)
"genetic" does not mean "hard-wired" (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been a popular misconception in the popular media for a long time that traits that are learned are malleable, whereas traits that are innate or genetic are not. This is not the case. The malleability of a trait depends on how it is implemented in the body, not on whether it is inborn or learned.
The simplistic view of the importance of genetic contribution probably stems from the way genetics is taught in school. Your eye color is genetically determined and eye color does not change. However, the reason why eye color does not change is not that it is inherited by genetic inheritance, but because eyes are constructed the way they are.
This is one of the reasons why psychologists worry much less about heritability of traits than they used to. The malleability of any given trait remains an empirical question. Your genes don't know how heritable they are.
For an interesting discussion of heritability and malleability, read Plomin et al's Behavioural Genetics - or the brief version here [iusb.edu].
Woo Hoo.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me there is an awful lot of hype surrounding the Human Genome Project.
I can print my kernel on A4 as 1's and 0's - Does this mean an end to security vunerablilities an better use of memory?
Genome researcher insult... (Score:2)
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Another run for bittorrent (Score:2)
Grr.. guess I'll have to search guntella for "human genome".
Re:This is Great (Score:5, Funny)
Its probably because you just lost around 110,000 genes. It could happen to anyone.
Re:This is Great (Score:2)