[FRIAM] * Exploring Mathematics with Sage
I've mentioned my favorite math system before, but here's a new tutorial that looks promising. http://vps.arachnoid.com/sage/ -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
[FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
I presume most of you've seen this already, but just in case: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Other than the fact that this is the first time we have seen a life form that uses arsenic as a chemical building block, why is this important? Is there something about arsenic that is so incompatible with other forms of life that it would seem to be impossible to do this? * -- Russ Abbott _* * Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja) blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ _* On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:25 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.comwrote: I presume most of you've seen this already, but just in case: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
This (from another articlehttp://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57851/#ixzz16zxXUGXe) looks like a significant part of the answer. Arsenic falls directly below phosphorus on the period table, and thus has many similar chemical properties. In contrast to relatively stable phosphorus-based molecules, however, arsenic compounds are extremely unstable. While phosphorus compounds take years, decades, or even millennia to break down, the rate of hydrolysis of arsenic compounds is usually measured in seconds or minutes. In fact, its similarity to phosphorus and its instability partly explains why arsenic is so toxic. The body may not be able to distinguish between phosphate -- the most common form of phosphorus in organisms -- and its arsenic equivalent, arsenate. As a result, scientists suspect that arsenate can be incorporated into molecules and pathways that normally use phosphate, causing downstream processes to fail if the arsenate molecules are quick to break down or otherwise don't work properly. *-- Russ Abbott* *_* * Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja) blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ _* On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 2:56 PM, Russ Abbott russ.abb...@gmail.com wrote: Other than the fact that this is the first time we have seen a life form that uses arsenic as a chemical building block, why is this important? Is there something about arsenic that is so incompatible with other forms of life that it would seem to be impossible to do this? * -- Russ Abbott _* * Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja) blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ _* On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:25 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: I presume most of you've seen this already, but just in case: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Russ Abbott wrote circa 10-12-02 03:04 PM: This (from another articlehttp://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57851/#ixzz16zxXUGXe) looks like a significant part of the answer. [...] In fact, its similarity to phosphorus and its instability partly explains why arsenic is so toxic. The body may not be able to distinguish between phosphate -- the most common form of phosphorus in organisms -- and its arsenic equivalent, arsenate. As a result, scientists suspect that arsenate can be incorporated into molecules and pathways that normally use phosphate, causing downstream processes to fail if the arsenate molecules are quick to break down or otherwise don't work properly. I think this block of text from the original article is more indicative of the importance[*] of the find: Although AsO_4^3- esters are predicted to be orders of magnitude less stable than PO_4^3- esters, at least for simple molecules (8), GFAJ-1 can cope with this instability. The vacuole-like regions observed in GFAJ-1 cells when growing under +As/-P conditions are potentially poly-β- hydroxybutyrate rich [as shown in other Halomonas species (19)] which may stabilize As(V)-O-C type structures because non-aqueous environments appear to promote slower hydrolysis rates for related compounds (8). We propose that intracellular regions or mechanisms that exclude water may also promote this stability. The keyword being non-aqueous. [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.comwrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Russ, As Steve G. would say, Any Gradient in a Storm! Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 3:57 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical Other than the fact that this is the first time we have seen a life form that uses arsenic as a chemical building block, why is this important? Is there something about arsenic that is so incompatible with other forms of life that it would seem to be impossible to do this? -- Russ Abbott _ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Google voice: 424-235-5752 (424-cell-rja) blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ _ On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:25 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: I presume most of you've seen this already, but just in case: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.htm l Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
I would say it's about as important biololgically as the first rock that falls up would be important physically! n From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 6:03 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Strange set of comments. Why so much defensiveness? I asked why the discovery was important. It was only a question. It wasn't an implied assertion that it wasn't important. All I wanted was an intuitive explanation for why it was important. And in fact the paragraph that I quoted in my second post was the sort of answer I was looking for. It may seem blatantly obvious to [Glen] that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, It wasn't to me, which is why I asked. Also the article Glen pointed to didn't say that As was substituted for P in DNA in particular. Nor was the paragraph Glen quotes in that article--not that I would have understood it anyway. I would still have asked what that means to a layman and why it matters. Nor does saying that it's as important as the first rock that fall upward would be important physically answer the question of why it's important. It's just an assertion that it is important. So my question now is why did such a simple and straightforward question elicited such defensive responses. *-- Russ * * * *P.S. I don't get the any gradient in a storm joke. Yes, I know that life has to do with gradients, but how is that related to this issue?* On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: I would say it’s about as important biololgically as the first rock that falls up would be important physically! n *From:* friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger Critchlow *Sent:* Thursday, December 02, 2010 6:03 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
[FRIAM] Neat piece of Net art
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ It's been around for a few months, but I've only just come across it. I found it surprisingly moving. -- R P.S. You'll need Chrome to view it. Some very cool HTML5 going on there. P.P.S. It's got flocks of boids! The signature of all great art :-) FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Hi, Russ! One reason it is important is that it demonstrates that life as we know it has a broader definition that previously thought. It means that if we find an earth-like planet out there, except with more arsenic than phosphorus -- in other words, a poisonous-to-us planet -- we might still find life on that planet. The number of planets that might support life-as-we-think-we-know-it just increased significantly. ~~James On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:14 PM, Russ Abbott russ.abb...@gmail.com wrote: Strange set of comments. Why so much defensiveness? I asked why the discovery was important. It was only a question. It wasn't an implied assertion that it wasn't important. All I wanted was an intuitive explanation for why it was important. And in fact the paragraph that I quoted in my second post was the sort of answer I was looking for. It may seem blatantly obvious to [Glen] that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, It wasn't to me, which is why I asked. Also the article Glen pointed to didn't say that As was substituted for P in DNA in particular. Nor was the paragraph Glen quotes in that article--not that I would have understood it anyway. I would still have asked what that means to a layman and why it matters. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Well, hmm, ok, I'll take a stab at it. The reason it's important is that it may be the tip of the iceberg of a category of alternative biologies, ie 'if this can happen what else can' - is this kind of thing prevalent? If there are alternative biologies (or 'shadow ecologies') beyond what we have considered, then the question arises: where are they? There will be new ways for astrobiologists to look for signatures for life on other planets. Remember that not too long ago we didn't know about extremophiles or the archaea. One other possible big thing would be, if there is a whole new category of alternative biologies (a ways to go before we can consider that seriously), and some of those are present here on earth, maybe even within us, then it's analogous to dark matter; we quite possibly don't know as much about our own biological or evolutionary dynamics as we currently think we know and a lot of current models will end up being bantha pudu. And just as extremophiles have opened up new frontiers in biotech, so will these if they turn out to be prevalent, in ways we can't conceive of yet. For example, there's coal, the burning of which yields a bunch of arsenic - if we have a bunch of life forms that like arsenic, then we have been thrown an interesting curve and our world, at least from today's perspective, may get very weird indeed. Maybe that's not saying much. So this is one of those science surprises, that may be game-changing. Carl On 12/2/10 9:14 PM, Russ Abbott wrote: Strange set of comments. Why so much defensiveness? I asked why the discovery was important. It was only a question. It wasn't an implied assertion that it wasn't important. All I wanted was an intuitive explanation for why it was important. And in fact the paragraph that I quoted in my second post was the sort of answer I was looking for. It may seem blatantly obvious to [Glen] that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, It wasn't to me, which is why I asked. Also the article Glen pointed to didn't say that As was substituted for P in DNA in particular. Nor was the paragraph Glen quotes in that article--not that I would have understood it anyway. I would still have asked what that means to a layman and why it matters. Nor does saying that it's as important as the first rock that fall upward would be important physically answer the question of why it's important. It's just an assertion that it is important. So my question now is why did such a simple and straightforward question elicited such defensive responses. /-- Russ / / / /P.S. I don't get the any gradient in a storm joke. Yes, I know that life has to do with gradients, but how is that related to this issue? / On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: I would say it’s about as important biololgically as the first rock that falls up would be important physically! n *From:*friam-boun...@redfish.com mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Roger Critchlow *Sent:* Thursday, December 02, 2010 6:03 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com mailto:g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Following Glen, Roger, and James, and also wondering why Nick is being a pill I believe the report is of interest for showing an organism that uses arsenic in interesting ways, but it gets its magical-shininess (i.e. Science worthiness) for showing an organism that does not use phosphorous. We have never found a life form that could do the life thing without phosphorous. It is almost (almost) like finding an organism that uses silicon instead of carbon. Oh, and then there is the potential for practical application... like cleaning up arsenic, which is a common pollutant coming out of mines. But anything like that is a long way off. Eric On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 08:03 PM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella # wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Sorry, Russ. Certainly didn't mean to be defensive. It's just that many of us have been reading in EvoDevo this semester and, if there is one idea that we seem to have learned, it is that the basic chemistry of life is universal and of more than a billion years standing. A billion years. Or perhaps two. The discovery described either suggests that these arsenic creatures are of enormous antiquity or an extraordinary innovation or that the basic tenets of evo devo are wrong. Hence my comment about a rock falling up. Does that help? Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 9:15 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical Strange set of comments. Why so much defensiveness? I asked why the discovery was important. It was only a question. It wasn't an implied assertion that it wasn't important. All I wanted was an intuitive explanation for why it was important. And in fact the paragraph that I quoted in my second post was the sort of answer I was looking for. It may seem blatantly obvious to [Glen] that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, It wasn't to me, which is why I asked. Also the article Glen pointed to didn't say that As was substituted for P in DNA in particular. Nor was the paragraph Glen quotes in that article--not that I would have understood it anyway. I would still have asked what that means to a layman and why it matters. Nor does saying that it's as important as the first rock that fall upward would be important physically answer the question of why it's important. It's just an assertion that it is important. So my question now is why did such a simple and straightforward question elicited such defensive responses. -- Russ P.S. I don't get the any gradient in a storm joke. Yes, I know that life has to do with gradients, but how is that related to this issue? On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: I would say it's about as important biololgically as the first rock that falls up would be important physically! n From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 6:03 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
[FRIAM] Parsing the Bard
Shakespeare versus Friam! Oh, My! Seems like a hugely mismatched intellectual exercise! Well, Will wrote words for that, too! Perhaps: “A concatenation of cats”. Or: “What fools these mortals be!” It’s poetry, fellas! Didn’t anyone tell you? Before penning ab initio, ab ignorantio analyses, just study a leetle of the overwhelming volume of criticism on the Melancholy Prince. A good modern one, of the tens of 1,000’s of articles, is in Marjorie Garber’s, Shakespeare after All (2004). Read, and then write. But, but, but, to the horror of literalists, in the “To be, or not...” soliloquy (III, i) our forgetful Prince describes death as “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns,” when two acts earlier (I, ii, iii), on the battlements, he’d actually been hearing some unpleasant revelations from his father’s ghost, “sy pappie se spook”, as the inelegant Afrikaans translation has it! Ah, consistency -- the hobgoblin of small minds -- but nevah the Bard’s! I view with delight all foreign versions of the play in “tongues unknown and accents yet unheard” that I can dig up. The Russian “Gamlet” (1964), with Smoktunovsky, and Shostakovich’s score, is pretty good. A darkly grand gothic revenge horse-opera. Much cold steel and poisoned chalices!! The Russian dialog is very impressive, sonorous and sinister, but a particular delight are the English captions. They are good, and grammatical, but weirdly, unaccountably, contain none of Shakespeare’s lines!! I have a vision of some good, grey Apparatchik Soviet State Translator, in the editing room earnestly listening to the spoken words and transcribing same into nice twentieth century English dialog with not the slightest inkling that there had actually been an English script (First Quarto, 1603), that a lotta Capitalists, over the centuries, found pretty inspiring! Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA tel:(505)983-7728 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
OK. Thanks. I actually did get that from the article but didn't think of it as that far out. It probably reflects my biologically naivety rather than scientific imagination, but it hadn't occurred to me that we wouldn't find life with different chemistries than our own. I think that extremophiles are wonderful. Although not extreme in the standard sense but related, two years ago there was a report of a bacterium discovered in a mine shaft in South Africa two miles beneath the earth's surface. It lives on the chemical energy stored by the effects of background nuclear reactions. Not only that, it is the only known life form that is completely independent of other forms of life. That is, its genome is sufficient to encode processes that sustain life. See, for example Discoverhttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2008/10/10/deep-in-a-goldmine-an-ecosystem-of-one/. (I imagine its DNA, however, was of standard construction.) * -- Russ * On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 9:21 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES e...@psu.edu wrote: Following Glen, Roger, and James, and also wondering why Nick is being a pill I believe the report is of interest for showing an organism that uses arsenic in interesting ways, but it gets its magical-shininess (i.e. Science worthiness) for showing an organism that does not use phosphorous. We have never found a life form that could do the life thing without phosphorous. It is almost (almost) like finding an organism that uses silicon instead of carbon. Oh, and then there is the potential for practical application... like cleaning up arsenic, which is a common pollutant coming out of mines. But anything like that is a long way off. Eric On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 08:03 PM, *Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org* wrote: On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com#12caac56911a12f4_12caaae425d9fa66_ wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Not quite sure where I earned the honor being called a “pill” on this one. Having been often accused of being long winded, I was trying to be brief, and so, seem to have managed to insult both sides of the “yes-its-surprising”-“no, it’s not surprising” discussion, when I meant no insult to anybody. I think the discovery is surprising, and I think it raises some pretty interesting issues of molecular taxonomy. Is the substitution of As for P the only difference in the chemistry of these critters? I don’t imagine it will be very long before somebody sequences them. I can’t wait! Nick From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 10:22 PM To: Roger Critchlow Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical Following Glen, Roger, and James, and also wondering why Nick is being a pill I believe the report is of interest for showing an organism that uses arsenic in interesting ways, but it gets its magical-shininess (i.e. Science worthiness) for showing an organism that does not use phosphorous. We have never found a life form that could do the life thing without phosphorous. It is almost (almost) like finding an organism that uses silicon instead of carbon. Oh, and then there is the potential for practical application... like cleaning up arsenic, which is a common pollutant coming out of mines. But anything like that is a long way off. Eric On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 08:03 PM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Parsing the Bard
And Gamlet is available on Netflix I see. That's one for the queue. Your comment about the mistranslation reminds me of the (almost certainly apocryphal) anecdote about the early days of computerized translation. The researcher types the phrase out of sight, out of mind and requests English-Russian followed by Russian-English translation, only to get invisible lunatic. Of course, I've also heard versions where the mediating language is Arabic, Chinese etc. But a good anecdote (even a poor one) is always more truthy than mere facts. -- R On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 11:00 PM, plissa...@comcast.net wrote: Shakespeare versus Friam! Oh, My! Seems like a hugely mismatched intellectual exercise! Well, Will wrote words for that, too! Perhaps: “A concatenation of cats”. Or: “What fools these mortals be!” It’s poetry, fellas! Didn’t anyone tell you? Before penning ab initio, ab ignorantio analyses, just study a leetle of the overwhelming volume of criticism on the Melancholy Prince. A good modern one, of the tens of 1,000’s of articles, is in Marjorie Garber’s, *Shakespeare after All* (2004). Read, and *then*write. But, but, but, to the horror of literalists, in the “To be, or not...” soliloquy (III, i) our forgetful Prince describes death as “The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns,” when two acts earlier (I, ii, iii), on the battlements, he’d actually been hearing some unpleasant revelations from his father’s ghost, “sy pappie se spook”, as the inelegant Afrikaans translation has it! Ah, consistency -- the hobgoblin of small minds -- but nevah the Bard’s! I view with delight all foreign versions of the play in “tongues unknown and accents yet unheard” that I can dig up. The Russian “Gamlet” (1964), with Smoktunovsky, and Shostakovich’s score, is pretty good. A darkly grand gothic revenge horse-opera. Much cold steel and poisoned chalices!! The Russian dialog is very impressive, sonorous and sinister, but a particular delight are the English captions. They are good, and grammatical, but *weirdly,* *unaccountably,* contain none of Shakespeare’s lines!! I have a vision of some good, grey Apparatchik Soviet State Translator, in the editing room earnestly listening to the spoken words and transcribing same into nice twentieth century English dialog with not the slightest inkling that there had actually been an English script (First Quarto, 1603), that a lotta Capitalists, over the centuries, found pretty inspiring! Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures Expertise is not knowing everything, but knowing what to look for. 1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505,USA tel:(505)983-7728 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical
Yeah -- staying out of the name the pill controversy ;) -- one neat little tidbit in the I'm always amazed by how little I know and how little I've thought about what I do know category. We think of Arsenic as a poison, but the only reason we think of it as a poison is (duh) that it is bad for *us*, i.e. humans + every other critter that we've run into before now. But the reason that it is bad is not that it is different from our chemistry, like an acid, but that it is so close to our chemistry, being next to phosphorous on the old periodic table, thus disrupting cellular mechanisms. So while typically we think of things that are close in structure or design to be friendly in fact here a movement to our nearest neighbor represents a major boundary shift, while one to a distant neighbor would of course be quite unlikely as the chances of slotting into the same role would be very slim. That idea could certainly argue for the idea that the current six element setup is arbitrary against some set of possible configurations. Once a choice is made in that configuration space it would be very unlikely (and only under these kind of extreme conditions) that we would move off it. The fact that we can (hmm, I mean I actually probably can't so please don't subject me to any experiments) anyway makes the argument that because that's the only way it works here even more tenuous. On Dec 2, 2010, at 9:21 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote: Following Glen, Roger, and James, and also wondering why Nick is being a pill I believe the report is of interest for showing an organism that uses arsenic in interesting ways, but it gets its magical-shininess (i.e. Science worthiness) for showing an organism that does not use phosphorous. We have never found a life form that could do the life thing without phosphorous. It is almost (almost) like finding an organism that uses silicon instead of carbon. Oh, and then there is the potential for practical application... like cleaning up arsenic, which is a common pollutant coming out of mines. But anything like that is a long way off. Eric On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 08:03 PM, Roger Critchlow r...@elf.org wrote: On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: [*] FWIW, I find it odd for you to ask, of this particular article, why is this important? Of all the obscure, mumbo-jumbo journal articles out there (our discussion of PoMo aside ;-), it seems blatantly obvious to me that the substitution of As for P in DNA is important, even if we don't know what the implications are. I am woefully ignorant of the literature, though. Is it fairly common to find and report substitutes for DNA components? No, it's not common, it's never been reported before, all DNA and RNA in life as we have known it up until today has been based on phospho-esters. -- rec -- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
