On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 3:18 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List < [email protected]> wrote:
> Just want to point out that the process of DNA expression is highly > dynamic and is multi-factored > Yes it certainly is, but however dynamic the DNA information is it's still just 750 meg (actually it's much less than that considering the massive amount of redundancy in our genome). And Telmo's 1000 lines of lisp would also have to be highly dynamic. > The mammalian genomes undergo very extensive genomic reprogramming during > embryogenesis. > And where did the information about how to do that reprogramming come from? >From the original 750 meg. > > This is especially so during the process of embryogenesis, an unfolding > developmental choreographed switching process that is controlled by > epigenetic programming (methylation /demethylation and other mechanisms). > Methylation means that occasionally a Methyl group might be added to one of the DNA bases, a base would have a Methyl group or it would not so it's still digital. There are 4 bases so AT MOST each of the 3 billion bases would represent 3 bits instead of 2, so the information content would increase from 750 Meg to 1.12 Gig and with a file compression program like ZIP you could still fit all of it on a CD. But in reality Epigenetic information is pretty clearly of minor importance compared with the DNA sequence information, so I doubt it would even cause it to increase to 751 Meg. And the evidence that Epigenetic heredity exists for more than one generation is very meager. > > DNA is not a direct single layered – single meaning -- instruction set > encoded and fixed. > You can assign as many layers of meaning on it as you like but nothing can change the fact that you could put all the information in the entire human DNA genome on a old fashioned CD and still have enough room on it for a Beatles album from 1965. > > The same strand of DNA, depending on the dynamic action of the large > number of transcription factors > A transcription factors is just a protein that binds to specific DNA sequences. And where did the information come from to know what sequence of amino acids will build that very important protein? From the original 750 Meg of course. > It is – IMO – necessary to understand DNA as [...] > I'm not saying that understanding how 750 Meg of DNA information manages to produce a human being will be easy, figuring out how Telmo's 1000 lines of lisp works will not be easy either, but I am saying that's all the information there is. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
