> *Subject:* Re: DNA Wormholes can cause cancer (what!?)
>
> Chris,
>
Hi. It sounds like you might be in computing since you mentioned some
terms like "reposited" (I've never heard of that in bio!)? If so, you are
very well educated in biology. Nice job! Your knowledge of the complexity
of a cell and of things moving around via motor proteins and the
cytoskeleton as opposed to diffusion only, etc. are real impressive. Many
of the computer and engineering guys I know seem to be allergic to biology
knowledge. Although, I admit I know almost nothing about computing either,
except for stuff from a few simple classes in Pascal, Fortran, etc. a long,
long time ago.
I'd never heard of that model where they ran it backwards to find the
genesis of life, but it sounds pretty neat. I think it's certainly
possible that life started in a far away stellar nursery and then came to
Earth on a comet or something. Although, I kind of liked that Star Trek
(The Next Gen.) episode where some ancient race of bald people seeded lots
of different oceans with their DNA and put a code in their that, once we
decipher it, will play a video of the bald people talking to us. I thought
that was one of their best episodes. But, the final question is still
there. How did the life originate where ever it came from? I can't rule
out anything, but I bet they'll be able to someday figure out a chemical
mechanism for things to start replicating themselves.
One big advantage that computing and engineering have over drug
discovery is that the scientist can design a system he or she wants to make
when it's code or a chip or something. But, because everything is so wet,
bouncing around, cross-reacting and "squishy" in bio, it's hard to design
things to work just the way you want them. Cells are always mutating,
proteins are always moving around and chemicals are always cross-reacting.
I think we'll eventually need to combine small mol. drugs and biological
drugs with nanotechnological devices and tiny molecular computers to cure
diseases.
I checked out that article on microbes being passed from generation to
generation. It was very interesting; although, it kind of sounded like it
was passed via an environmental route because the next generation of
animals lived in the same environment as the previous generation, and the
microbes are probably all over the environment in the form of feces, shed
fur, surfaces, animals touching each other, etc. I'd have to read more
about it, but it sounded like not quite a direct mechanism of transmission.
One more pontification, and I promise I'll stop, but I think some of
the physics guys could learn from biochemists because biochemists are
always looking for mechanisms of action for how things work. But, it seems
like the physicists are more content to say something works and we have the
math to describe it. For instance, I don't think they really know even why
positive and negative charges attract or two positive charges repel, do
they? I know there are fields of force, and exchange of photons (or other
force particles for other forces), but how exactly does this lead to
attraction or repulsion? I admit I know very little about it, but this
kind of thing frustrates me when reading popular physics articles. In
their defense, though, force particles are much smaller than proteins!
At least, Monday is over! Have a good week.
Roger
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