Russia Plans To Build World First DNA Databank of All Living Things 83
An anonymous reader writes Researchers from Moscow State University plan to build a database that will house the DNA of every creature known to man. The University has secured a $194 million grant for the project dubbed "Noah's Ark." The gigantic "ark," set to be completed by 2018, will be 430 sq km in size, built at one of the university's central campuses. "It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce. It will also contain information systems. Not everything needs to be kept in a petri dish," MSU rector Viktor Sadivnichy says.
I'm onto your game! (Score:1)
We can't let Putin send out the first galactic seed ships! We need to dedicate ourselves to spreading our precious bodily fluids all across the universe before the Commies beat us to it!
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4 Great justice !
Take off every Zig!
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We need to dedicate ourselves to spreading our precious bodily fluids all across the universe
Don't worry about my bedroom. I've got it covered.
$194 million (Score:2, Funny)
So 78 sextillion rubles then?
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So 78 sextillion rubles then?
I hear Anna Chapman is the portrait on that denomination...
Re:$194 million (Score:4, Funny)
You took too long to post, it's up to 79 sextillion now. No wait, 80.
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Yeah. They totally got it back under 50 sextillion!
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The ruble retracted its december losses (but only its december losses) by the central bank:
1) Throwing the Russian economy to the wolves, via raising the prime rate to a staggering 17%
2) Starting a new wave of dumping massive quantities of their reserve funds onto the open market, hastening the funds' demise
3) Forcing exporters to swap their foreign currency for rubles, thus putting them at greater risk for defaulting on their foreign debts
How long do you think *any* of these can last, much less all three?
In soviet russia (Score:2, Funny)
ark builds you!
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Re:Kind of big (Score:5, Funny)
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I'll bet the figure was 430,000 sq m and some bright journalist decided that he could save space by replacing three zeros with a "k".
Obligatory SMBC (Score:1)
Poor Noah [smbc-comics.com]
Kinda Like Cryogenesis for Humans ... (Score:3)
"It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce."
But they don't actually have the technology to do that, right? So isn't this the same thing as humans cryogenicaly freezing themselves now, blindly assuming that future scientists will be able to remove anti-freeze from their veins?
In other words, isn't this giant expensive project entirely predicated on the the development of future technology that can actually use these samples, without any guarantee whatsoever that that technology will materialize?
Re:Kinda Like Cryogenesis for Humans ... (Score:5, Interesting)
It depends on what you mean be "reproduce".
If you are talking about having babies, the technology is science fiction, but near science fiction – not far science fiction like cryogenic freezing people. For example, synthetic life is a viable field of study. We can build bacterium from scratch. We are a long distance from resurrecting mastodons – which we have the DNA for. However the issues we face are known. To reach cryogenics we face many unknown hurdles. That is blue sky territory.
However, "reproduce" could mean reading and understanding the DNA of creatures, a much lower and viable hurdle. Sequencing unknown genomes is expensive but the cost is falling fast. There are many species on the verge of extinction. Better to collect the samples know and sequence latter.
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We can build bacterium from scratch.
We can take piles of elements and combine them into a living bacterium? I didn't think were were to that yet. We use viruses to splice in genes to make modifications, but can't "create" much of anything at this point.
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We can't build the cells yet but we can build and insert the complete genome into a bacterium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
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We can build bacterium from scratch.
No we can't. Not even close.
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Depends what you mean by "from scratch".
http://singularityhub.com/2010... [singularityhub.com]
To me, that qualifies as "from scratch", justified in the same manner that I justify people saying they made a pizza "from scratch" using store-bought tomatoes and mozzarella.
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They won't build shit (Score:2, Informative)
In Russia, at least 2/3rds of all money gets stolen outright on any project like this (and the rest gets similarly picked apart by subcontractors until nothing is left). This is nothing but a front to pilfer government money. Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:They won't build shit (Score:5, Insightful)
The same happens the world over. this isn't unique to russia
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What's unique to Russia is the sheer scale and brazenness of theft. No one is even trying to hide it, and it goes all the way to the top. Putin was exporting 30% of Russia's oil through a firm owned by his old friend. I very much doubt he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart.
It is not a coincidence that Russia consistently comes in at the bottom of the list in the various corruption ratings. And it's not a coincidence that their economy turns to shit every time oil takes a nosedive. It doesn't take
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The difference is that in America, the graft and corruption is largely democratized; everyone gets a cut. Lobbyists get money for their projects, senators get projects for their state, and the state gets jobs associated with the project. Now, it's still crooked as all hell, but as far as oligarchies go it could be worse.
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No the sheer scale is pretty much the same, the only really difference is how it is presented the public. Most western countries hide the corruption behind regulations, donations, committees, fact finding missions, consultancies, reports etc etc. The level is the same but they ensure it is stamped as legal.... even then we still get a heap of pollies that aren't content with how much they are snorting up from the pig trough and get caught on the illegal stuff too.
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In Soviet Russia, government pilfers you. Seems like a trend.
If you're into reading... (Score:2)
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To say nothing of the fact that, since to collect the DNA of a single-cell lifeform will essentially kill it, they intend on wiping out all bacteria, amoebae, etc.
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Another Skolkovo scheme (Score:1)
And their math does not add up: "a record injection of 1 billion rubles (US$194 million)". With RUB/USD rate > 50 they are an order of magnitude wrong in one of the numbers.
Comments (Score:1)
Scanning the comments section under the article is interesting. An incredible collection of delusional morons, or simply a throng of fake accounts posting (poorly written) Russian propaganda. The notion that actual human beings could be behind these opinions is frightening...
Already in process? (Score:2)
Aren't there already several DNA library initiatives underway? I think one is called LifeTechnologies, and then there's the seed vault in Norway (I think it's Norway). There was also talks a long time ago about putting a DNA library on the moon, which obviously has not happened yet.
All your base pairs... (Score:2)
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It's a good thing I don't have mod points right now. I would have to hold my nose... and mod you up. Instead, I will just hold my nose.
"430 sq km in size"...Bullshit (Score:3)
So that's what, a little more than 20Km per side; if it's a sqaure block? Not happening anywhere, especially in Russia since the currency tanked.
Also, storing something as tiny as DNA requires little space...
The CCCP is back! (Score:1)
Wow! I guess the Soviet Union really is back. This is the kind of flamboyant nonsense they used to put out in Pravda.
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"Stay on the PCR run, boys. I'm gonna get them DNA strands replicated if it harelips everybody on Bear Creek!"
-Major Kong
So which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"First DNA Databank of All Living Things"
"database that will house the DNA of every creature known to man"
Those might be grammatically similar, but the numbers differ by several orders of magnitude.
Humans really know mostly about multi-cellular critters, plus the tiny fraction of the single-celled species that interact with us somehow. Almost all single-celled species are yet to be discovered.
One of the more interesting bits of evidence is that all of the deep-drilling projects, which have sampled only a tiny chunk of the planet's crust, have reported single-celled living things "all the way down". It'll take a while for us to do a good study of everything living deep down there. Similarly, several deep-water sampling projects have turned up large numbers of unknown microscopic species throughout their water columns.
I guess this mostly goes to show how difficult it can be to do a good journalistic job of summarizing scientific work so that non-scientists can understand the actual results. "Ordinary English" (or French or Russian or any other human language) is sufficiently imprecise that it's very difficult to avoid misleading mistakes like the two summaries of this story.
Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't build anything 430 square km in size for $194 million. Certainly not in central Moscow, because that's roughly the land area of *all* of Moscow. Even if you're just counting internal floor area and you build it 100 stories tall, it'd be the largest building in the world by floor area by a factor of 400, would be about the size of lower Manhattan, and be the largest building in the world by footprint by a factor of eight.
Post-soviet Russia has a long track record of announcing glorious plans for amazing science and technology and not doing them. Going by press releases, they've got what, six Mars missions underway right now? Occasionally Russia does something cool, but I say, give 'em credit for their achievements, not their plans, because 99% of their plans are just pipe dreams. Goes double if it's announced by RT.com.
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Replying to my earlier post, I suppose it's possible some PR flack screwed up a unit conversion, and it's actually 430,000 square meters. Which is still a gigantic building you could never build for $194 million, but is significantly less ludicrous.
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I already mentioned multiple floors in my comments. If you're imagining something like the Burj Khalifa, imagine ONE THOUSAND of them side by side.
Or maybe you're prefer something wider and flatter, like the U.S. Pentagon building? No problem, just build EIGHT HUNDRED of those stacked on top of each other.
This [cnn.com] is the world's largest building by floor area. 430 km^2 would be 400 of them.
Paranoid thought (Score:2)
Please wait while we back up earth .. (Score:2)
Wouldn't we have to discover them all first? (Score:2)
That would be a neat trick, since we haven't discovered and cataloged all species yet, not even close.
Take beetles [wikipedia.org] as an example. New species of beetles are being discovered constantly. Beetles make up a quarter of all known animal life-forms, and by some estimates there are orders of magnitude more undiscovered beetle species than there are known animal species of any kind. We will probably never even come close to discovering them all.
TOO LATE! (Score:1)
So... (Score:2)
Where can I make a deposit?
CHA-CHING!