BS: Was this worth doing?

Subject: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 May 08 - 10:59 PM

The first sequencing of a composite human genome was announced in 2001.

At least four individual male genomes and those of about a dozen animals have so far been sequenced.

Scientists have now announced that (apparently having run out of interesting things to do?) Scientists encode first woman's genome

Project allows scientists to compare DNA of men and women

MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 12:25 p.m. CT, Tues., May. 27, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Dutch scientists say they have completed the first sequencing of an individual woman's DNA.

The researchers at Leiden University Medical Center reported the sequencing of the entire genome of one of their female researchers, clinical geneticist Marjolein Kriek.

"If anyone could properly consider the ramifications of knowing his or her sequence, it is a clinical geneticist," Professor Gert-Jan B. van Ommen, leader of the research team and director of the Center for Medical Systems Biology, said in a news release issued Monday.

The first sequencing of a composite human genome was announced in 2001. At least four individual male genomes and those of about a dozen animals have so far been sequenced.

Women don't possess the male Y chromosome, but instead have two X chromosomes. Van Ommen said that could lead to genomic differences between the sexes.

"As the X chromosome is present as a single copy in half the population, the males, it has undergone a harsher selection in human evolution. This has made it less variable," he explained. "We considered that sequencing only males, for 'completeness,' slows insight into X-chromosome variability. So it was time, after sequencing four males, to balance the genders a bit."

How much, how long?

The researchers said the cost of the project was 40,000 euros ($63,000). That price tag does not include in-depth genomic analysis, which is expected to take another six months.

"The sequencing itself took about six months," said Johan den Dunnen, project leader at the Leiden Genome Technology Center, "partly since it was run as a 'side operation' filling the empty positions on the machine while running other projects. Would such a job be done in one go, it would take just 10 weeks."

No other scientists have yet verified the Dutch data, but some experts said they were eager to see the sequence.

/quotes

At long last, the potential to answer some of Bobert's frequent questions.

PLEASE NOTE: The Thread Title was meant to be SARCASTIC. I'd been wondering what was taking them so long to get around to this.

It's about time!

John

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: MarkS
Date: 27 May 08 - 11:36 PM

Difference between the sexes? Naaaah. Whould'a'thunk it.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 May 08 - 12:09 AM

IF they follow through and keep at it, it might make up, partially, for all of the disparity in research of women concerning heart attacks and a myriads of other things where they studied only men, then treated women based on that research.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 May 08 - 12:14 AM

Wait a darn sec! Modern liberal and feminist movements tell us there is no difference between men and women. What is one to believe.?















There, John in Kansas, is the sarcasm you were trying for.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: GUEST,Convidado
Date: 28 May 08 - 08:26 AM

To suggest "feminists" claim there is no difference between men and women is to make a fallacious argument for the express purpose of being sensationalist.

Even if you intend to be provocative or sarcastic, it doesn't really work. It just sounds like you don't want to be taken seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 May 08 - 09:32 AM

My question is, how could Mitochondrial Eve have lived thousands of years before Y-Chromosome Adam?

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 May 08 - 12:38 PM

Mrrzy -

You need to check your notes. We explained that to you back in October '06.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 08 - 12:54 PM

Have they sequenced Hillary's DNA yet?

Mrrzy - "Adam" and "Eve" are clearly symbolic figures, symbolizing the earliest antecedents of the human race in a collective sense by personifying them as "Adam and Eve". To take the story literally as being about just two single human beings, one of whom was made out of the other's rib, is downright asinine...and I hope you are not assuming that every religiously inclined person does take it literally! Yes, I know that some of them do... But why judge any group by its least rational members? Or is that just convenient to support your argument?

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: frogprince
Date: 28 May 08 - 01:17 PM

Good grief, LH; how could you get from Mrrzy's wording to the notion that she needs to be told that Genesis isn't a literal account?
I've heard the "mitochondrial Eve" reference any number of times from writers working in a realistic evolutionary framework,

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: frogprince
Date: 28 May 08 - 01:20 PM

I've heard that male humans have about 80% of their DNA in common with stuff like brussel sprouts; I wonder if the percentage in common with female humans will be anywhere near that high?

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 May 08 - 02:35 PM

Get a life, Convidado!

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:46 PM

According to Lewis Black,

The first book in the Old Testament is actually a clever test put in place to discover the gullible people in the Temple.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:53 PM

Yeah, I guess I jumped the gun there, frogprince... ;-) I should've taken a bit more time reading it.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Slag
Date: 28 May 08 - 06:52 PM

Of course it is WORTH doing. That $63,000 is a small price to pay to keep roving bands of unemployed scientists of the streets of our cities.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 28 May 08 - 07:14 PM

Unemployed scientists?

Oh Noooo!!

Quick, find them something fairly harmless to do before they begin to wonder what would happen if.....

There is only one thing more dangerous than a dedicated scientist, and that is a bored one.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 28 May 08 - 07:56 PM

Or a "mad" one...

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 May 08 - 10:53 PM

Like THIS?

Oooo, they can get a bit DANGEROUS!

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Slag
Date: 30 May 08 - 01:19 AM

I should have a retort for that but the gravity of the situation has left me...speechless?

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:22 AM

Want more sarcasm?

Try here:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4OCxc6Zsl24&feature=related !!

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: HuwG
Date: 30 May 08 - 08:01 AM

According to Stephen Fry (in the panel game program QI), the reason for the difference in ages between Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam was that for a long period, human evolution consisted of heavy- to industrial-strength lesbianism.

Subject: RE: BS: Was this worth doing?
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 05:40 PM

There are many undertakings about which one must raise this question.

One of them, which I think was wonderful fun, was the Victorian Telectroscope -- two giant brass and wood telescope frames, one in London and one in New York, through which people could see the streets and people of the other city in real time, aided by HD cameras and a broadband network link hidden inside the works of the antique telescopes.

The original news story about the concept, from the 19th century press, is even more titillating:

"St. George is an artist in Britain who does have a grandfather -- minus the great prefix -- named Alexander.

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And the trans-Atlantic tunnel is really a trans-Atlantic broadband network rounded off on each end with HD cameras, according to Tiscali, an Italian Internet provider handling the technical side of the project.

As for the Telectroscope, well, it was a fanciful idea that, according to St. George, came about from a typo made by a 19th-century reporter who misspelled Electroscope, a device used to measure electrostatic charges - as Telectroscope.

"The journalist also misunderstood what it was about and wrote in the article that it was a device for the suppression of absence," St. George said. "The accidental hope captured their imagination, and lots of people at the end of the 19th century thought it was a great idea."

The Telectroscope captured St. George's imagination five years ago, when he began pondering how to do a project on the childhood fantasy of digging a hole to the opposite side of the Earth. And because the artist also happens to have an expertise in Victorian chronophotography -- a precursor to cinematography -- he had a slight idea of where to look for the proper equipment.

"We all have that idea in our head if we could make a tunnel to the other side of the Earth," St. George said."But we are not all crazy enough to actually try and do it."

St. George was crazy enough to actually try and do it, but he realized he could not do the digging alone. So about two years ago, he pitched the idea to Artichoke, the British arts group responsible for taking the Sultan's Elephant -- a 42-ton mechanical creature -- for a stroll through central London in 2006. The company was immediately taken by St. George's idea.

"The whole thing is about seeing what is real and what isn't real and how the world is," said Nicki Webb, a co-founder of Artichoke. "Is it nighttime when we are in daytime, and does it look familiar to us or not?"

When the sun illuminated the lens of the Telectroscope next to the Thames, it was, of course, still nighttime in New York. So the screen inside the scope broadcast back only an empty sidewalk silently framed by the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.

But then something miraculous occurred.

A police officer and a street cleaner walked into the frame. Stopped. And waved."

---

What really gets me is the idea of a technical device created on the principle of the suppression of absence!! It is so poetic, and so strangely Victorian in its nature! And indeed, here in the 21st C., we have exactly such a device, of which the Cat is a supremely fine example.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/22/scope.project/index.html

A