Plan To Build a Genetic Noah's Ark Includes a Staggering 66,000 Species (gizmodo.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: An international consortium involving over 50 institutions has announced an ambitious project to assemble high-quality genome sequences of all 66,000 vertebrate species on Earth, including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. With an estimated total cost of $600 million dollars, it's a project of biblical proportions. It's called the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), and it's being organized by a consortium called Genome 10K, or G10K. As its name implies, this group had initially planned to sequence the genomes of at least 10,000 vertebrate species, but now, owing to tremendous advances and cost reductions in gene sequencing technologies, G10K has decided to up the ante, aiming to sequence both a male and female individual from each of the approximately 66,000 vertebrate species on Earth. Cofounders of the project announced the new goal yesterday at a press briefing held during the opening session of the 2018 Genome 10K conference, currently being held at Rockefeller University in New York City. The project will involve over 150 experts from 50 institutions in 12 countries.
Re: (Score:2)
This is by some margin the grossest poem ever written.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe we may have a Vogon [wikia.com] in our midst.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, not that bad. It was kinda cool in a dark humor way.
What, no bugs or plants? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this is an excellent idea and my first reaction was, "Only 66000 species?" But because of the limited scope of the project that makes sense. However, in order for a project like this to really be useful in a worst-case scenario, all these vertebrates will need some company. Hopefully the other arc-style projects can supply that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: What, no bugs or plants? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, not a public service in the least. Quite simply a cross referential database of genetic sequences to spot the differences, in core characteristics, the whys and wherefores and then claim they originated the sequence and steal it from the public domain.
It seems like the cheeky fuckers are getting everyone to donate time and effort and then they will steal the outcomes. By cross referencing genetic sequences and known outcomes for each species, you can effectively tag the combination to generate specif
Re: (Score:1)
By the time they reach 62,000, they'll realize that the other 4000 have gone extinct.
They tried to bring a creimer (Score:1)
but there's no female in his species. He's like a Moclan, only without the charm.
"Biblical proportions"? (Score:3)
Maybe they were thinking of the early Hollywood biblical film epics. They cost a lot of money, at the time.
Anyway, to get back to the cynicism, what's the bet this company decides they own those genetic sequences once they've sorted them out?
Re: (Score:3)
Naturally occurring DNA sequences can't be patented.
A modified sequence can be patented, or a novel and innovative use of a natural sequence can be patented.
Basic rule of thumb: You can only patent inventions, not discoveries.
Re:"Biblical proportions"? (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought the very same thing, so I actually read the article.
From TFA
"The new sequences will be stored and made publically available at the Genome Ark database, a digital open-access library of genomes. Corporate sponsors DNAnexus and Amazon Web “have been instrumental in getting this project off the ground,” said Phillippy."
I'm certain there will be some catch on account of "corporate sponsors", but at face value, this actually looks pretty benevolent. I'm guessing the corporate dogs get some kind of "Right of patent" or the like on the inevitable research breakthroughs and discoveries that come of this.
Article also says it takes a week to sequence a single one, so we're talking 11,088,000 man hours (before setbacks, mistakes and equipment failures) with current technology, and it's worth pointing out that this is running in tandem with the Human Connectome Project, and possibly replicating the efforts of the Earth Biogenome Project.
While I'm all for a project like this, putting the complete genome of every vertebrate species on the planet into an open source project just for the lolz, this sounds way to good to be true.
Also, does putting the number 66k out there means we're finally past the whole "new species are being discovered everyday." phase of history?
Re: (Score:1)
Anyway, to get back to the cynicism, what's the bet this company decides they own those genetic sequences once they've sorted them out?
They aren't hosting any themselves at this point and are just acting as an index (which has a download link which is broken on their site) of universities who signed on. So essentially, if they have anything already they decided not to share outside of that network.
LC is the singularity of metrical analysis (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they should scan more than 1 of each sex (Score:2)
That way you could create a better model.
I guess once you've sequenced them all, you could beam the info to space, you know, just in case...
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, if it was good enough for an ancient story...
That number would probably sound more impressive (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They're sequencing vertebrate species - add that word and the first Google results say there's only 40,000 instead of the 8.7 million total estimate.
Wow - 600 big one's for this project. (Score:2)
Last Year's Headlines (Score:2)
Supernatural climate change and divine wisdom leads to antediluvian inbreeding depression. God damn it!
Hope they document their code! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Name? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, technically it is a genetic noah's arc. It has about as many animals as that ship in the old story could hold, it has one male and one female on board without any reasonable explanation how this could possibly not mean death by genetic defect within a handful of generations and it is about as useful for us out here in the real world.
I think the naming is pretty apt.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no "death by genetic defect" if the original pair is healthy. Inbreeding doesn't cause genetic problems, it just amplifies existing ones. If the original pair is free of recessive problems as well, then ALL of their descendants will be genetically healthy until such time as new problematic mutations are developed. If they do have problematic recessives then some of their descendants will have problems - fortunately in the wild those are usually the first to be eaten, so the gene-pool has a fair
Re: (Score:2)
Quite so. The cheetah's in fact have gone through two severe bottlenecks in the last 12,000 years and are virtually clones - you can graft skin between cheetahs willy-nilly without rejection. Also white mice used in laboratories are effectively clones, no diversity at all, and they are healthy (until the researchers get to them).
If you have the genetic technology to actually create an animal from a DNA sequence then you definitely have the technology to edit out defects. And of course a cone/copy of a healt
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard that humans show genetic evidence of being reduced to But it does not take many well chosen individuals to capture a high percentage of the total diversity of a species.
Chosen *before* sequencing their DNA? (Afterwards, why not just record a broader sample - difference-encoding makes for incredibly efficient compression)
I have my doubts. Obvious differences are easy to spot - disease resistance strategies though, those are far more important to diversity, and not obvious at a glance.
But absolute
Collection logistics (Score:2)
No doubt quite a lot can be achieved by contacting a great number of zoos around the world, but it seems to me that there must be a great many species not held in collections. One rarely sees bats in zoos for example and I understand t
"Staggering"? (Score:2)
I don't consider that as any kind of definition for "staggering" if you are actually trying to do any kind of ark.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault currently has about 968,000 samples, and can hold up to about 4,500,000, and theirs aren't genetic profiles, it's actual packets of seeds.
As to the VPA, will those "high definition genetic profiles" have enough data to replicate the DNA? Why don't they have tissue samples?
Yes, sure
Re: (Score:2)
True, but they're only sequencing *vertebrate* species - and 66,000 is just about all of those known.
I suppose they figure if we wipe out the smaller faster-living species we'll be too screwed to recover. Or new species will evolve fast enough to fill the niches.
Re: (Score:2)
They do it with viruses (easy, since their parasitic nature means you just have to inject their DNA into a susceptible cell for it to suborn to produce the whole virus). They've also done it with some bacteria as well. And yeast. A bit of a step from there to mammals, but a lot of the fundamental techniques are already being developed. Heck, you can mail-order real DNA synthesized to match whatever digital sequence you provide.
Meanwhile, we've been doing nucleus transfers and cloning for decades. Not w
InGen (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
As long as they're healthy the defects are recessive, "good" DNA is present, and some of the offspring will be healthy - several generations of aggressive culling will get you a healthy species, especially if you use genetic screening to advise the culling selection. And of course, if we're bringing a species back from digital DNA records then correcting such defects will be trivial (at least on the second try, once we know what the problems are).
The species will still lack genetic diversity, and be corres
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty precise - there's only about 0.1% DNA difference within the entire human species, Chimpanzees are about 1.2% different than us. Google says our cells own transcription mechanism has an error rate of about one in 10^10 base pairs (a.k.a. the mutation rate), so that gives an upper limit on how accurate any synthesis has to be. But that's a system evolved for long-term replication of the species across millions of generations, you could probably get away with a much higher error rate for a "single-us
Re: (Score:2)
Death is one possibility, but competing less effectively is more likely, which could leave the genes in circulation for a long time. Or cancer - lots of cell duplication in a single organism. Biological error rates are probably optimized to maximize the evolutionary advantage of mutation against the disadvantages of crippling developmental defects.
You seem to be saying that problems in *recording* the DNA accurately would be devastating - and I agree. I'm not sure how accurate we are at at this point. En
Re: (Score:2)
It seems unlikely that the modern DNA replication mechanism "just happened" in the current state from nothing. Far more likely it evolved, which means it *was* designed, by the "unintelligent designer" of natural selection. Some early organisms may even have developed 100% accurate replication - but no mutations means no evolution, especially with asexual reproduction. And such organisms would be rapidly out-competed by their evolving compatriots.
"And it's generally unlikely that a replacement of a genui
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're sim-interpretting what I'm trying to say. I'm not ascribing intention to anything, I'm describing effects. Just as gravity optimizes towards minimum-differential energies, and makes all sufficiently large objects round, evolution optimizes for long term reproductive success of gene-lines. The balance between accuracy and mutation in DNA replication systems is a big contributing factor to that. Mutate too fast, and you don't have the genetic stability to remain a viable gene-line and die o
Re: (Score:2)
And hey, if you can figure out how to do that to elephants, absolutely! :-D
I mention size and domestication because those are changes we already have a pretty good grasp on, seeing very similar genetic changes in many different species, and they would be useful for quickly making elephants into even more valuable and versatile "industrial equipment" than they are now - and if civilization and it's techno-industrial base collapses, such self-propagating organic technology will persist long after the knowled
Re: (Score:2)
ALL errors are random - and I'm not assuming evolution can fix the errors we introduce at all - I'm proposing we analyze the genome, and revert probable error sections to the state they were probably in a not-too-distant ancestor species.
Here's my assumptions for the future researchers attempting to restore a lost species a few hundred or thousand years from now.
1) They will be able to sequence surviving organisms and organic DNA vaults with ~100% accuracy.
2) They'll be able to identify ~100% of sequencing
Big Deal (Score:2)
Even if they could use the DNA to bring a species back to life...
One of each sex isn't a large enough population to bring them back from the dead. There isn't enough genetic variation in two members. They need to have samples of a lot more of each species.
And this is something that I've never heard brought up in science programs that talk about bringing back extinct animals. (I'm not saying nobody has thought about it, I just haven't heard that they have.) All animals have an extensive micro biome in their