Song Challenge: Human Genome

Subject: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 05:29 PM

I can't believe we don't already have a thread on this.

When I was taking advanced genetics in college, we made up a song for Finals that went something like this:

Let me tell you how it's gonna be
You're gonna give your genes to me
I'm gonna keep them locked up inside
Make some more deoxyribonucleotides!

So, what I envision now, so many many moons later, is something more in the nature of Tom Lehrer's The Elements. It should be to the tune of a Gilbert & Sullivan pattersong, like the Nightmare one if not the Modern Major General, and it can merely list as many sites as they've mapped, or include lyrical lyrics. REM's It's Then End Of The World As We Know It might actually be a[ppropriate, upon further reflection...

Now go forth and multiply!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 05:50 PM

Not quite what you're looking for and I'm short on time:

Genome, Genome, I'm deranged, Where deoxyribonucleotides change, The best part is sex, To get a proper mix, The result you hope is not strange!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 05:54 PM

Insults among basic pairs: "Uracil!" Ah, the Land O' The Alleles...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: The Shambles
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 06:11 PM

D.N.A.

Natural Selection, Darwin said
I thought I chose you but instead
The genes in my jeans had their way
I didn't seem to have a say

Apples and oranges, chalk and cheese
There's different fruit from the same trees
From where do they come, these traits you see?
The bad ones from you, the good ones from me

Hey, hey, hey,
It's just the way
They call it D.N.A.
That's what they say
It's only D.N.A.

I wanted my son to be strong
To lift weights and run all day long
But he wants to study all the time
I know he's yours but is he mine

All those deposits in sperm banks
A lot of hard work and many thanks
For a father you've chosen Professor So and So
But your son could turn out to be Frank Bruno

Hey, hey, hey,
It's just the way
They call it D.N.A.
That's what they say
It's only D.N.A.
^^

Roger Gall

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: GUEST,Mike Ireland
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 06:17 PM

I think the gene pool needs a little chlorine in it!

Mike

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 08:09 PM

Mbo, I about fell off my chair laughing.

I also heard that one of the main problems with the gene pool is that it has no lifeguard..

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 08:27 PM

Nah...the problem with the gene pool is all the stuff floating around in the shallow end....

Sung by the Blues Quartet of 'Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine'....

If love was a chain I think I would find me a long one
Hear me talkin', several nucleotides long
Parallel sides and complimentary base pairs
That unzip down to there
In genetic replication....

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 08:44 PM

Here's one I did about genetic viruses some time ago...click!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 09:15 PM

Horrible, truly horrible...but Village People

C-T-G-A
Gonna replicate
C-T-G-A
And the hydrogen bonds
Contained in your genome
Call the nucleus their home
C-T-G-A...

~Elle (having SERIOUS biochem flashbacks)

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Susan of DT
Date: 29 Jun 00 - 09:33 PM

I love it. How many biologists have we here? I taught genetics once upon a time.

MBO send me your name on member e-mail, so I can credit you with the song.

tunes, Shambles, MBO??

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 01:04 PM

Good one Mbo, and nice way around finding the rhyme for Endoplasmic Reticulum! And Susan of DT, I have 2 degrees in Biology but never taught it. Does that count?

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 04:47 PM

Yep. Degrees in Biology and Zoology. Never thought I'd use them here! :)

Also thanks Mrrzy, been having a BLAST with this one!! Driving everyone in the clinic absolutely mad. For yourself, how about a little high-energy gospel?

I'm gonna spilt some day, sweet Lord yes
I'm gonna split some day
I'm gonna split some day sweet Lord yeah
I'm gonna split some day
My cell mates all talk about replication
Perfect duplicates excepting for mutations
Cellular mitosis without reservation
I'm gonna split some day

~Elle

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mbo
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 04:49 PM

All I have is an Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts, half way throught my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design...but I really like science! "This Mold House" comes to mind...Elle, we need to do some songs for the show...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 05:07 PM

These are a howl! But I'm still fishing for something in the pattersong domain... There's Adenine and Gu-anine and Cytosine and Thymine too / and don't forget poor Uracil although it's on just RNA / and when we twist together we can make a plant or animal and then we come apart again and make some more new little ones...(Regroup! and you change the 10 to 10 ones...)

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 05:11 PM

Mbo;
I'm still reeling from This Mold House. (So are most of the folks that were at that seminar.) I agree, Praise's bash next summer? Afternoon dedicated to the melody of mold?
~Elle

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Bradypus
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 07:16 PM

I'm working on something, but genetic offspring won't go to sleep, so it may take me some time. First line:

We have the very model of the chromasomes genomical

By the way, have you found the Gilbert and Sullivan Parodies webpage ? I'll post the address later, when I've got two hands and a whole brain free ...

Bradypus

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 07:28 PM

Bradypus;
You manage to work in Dollo's law of Irreversibility, and you are my HERO!
~Elle (who will be working on this pattersong aspect tonight)

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Bradypus
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 07:49 PM

Daughter now asleep, but my brain can't handle genomics at this time in the morning (12:45 am)!

Here's the parody archive - enjoy! I especially liked the Self-referential parody of the Major General's song; I've looked at a few others, and enjoyed them - I'm sure I'll be back at this site again

G&S Parody Archive

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Susan of DT
Date: 30 Jun 00 - 09:01 PM

A ballad with a refrain line of:
oh the blue genes and the yellow...
have to work on that

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Jul 00 - 04:08 PM

Thanks for the G&S parody site! There is already something there to the tune of the Nightmare song...

How about something like The genomic Rag? (replicate, replicate, replicate!)

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Bradypus
Date: 01 Jul 00 - 07:04 PM

This ended up a bit more serious than I intended, and it's missing the half verses from the original - is it worth taking any further ??

The Chromosomes Genomical

We have the very model of the chromosomes genomical
The implications of this feat are really astronomical
We've sequenced every human gene, at least ninety percent of them
Intelligent and cunning too, and using every stratagem
We've introns, exons, codons, genes and bases found in DNA
We've duplicated, replicated, translated it for many a day
It's published on the net, and in the scientific literature
We know we've made our mark, and that our science now is fit for sure

Chromosomes one to twenty-two, and X and Y, there are no more
Are just arrangements of the bases, and of these there's only four
These bases, paired on DNA, contain all that you need to know
For proteins, livers, hearts and brains and anything you want to grow
With letters four the code is made, the letters A,C,G and T
A pairs with T, and G with C, so replication works you see
ATTAC ATTAC A GAG A CAT may not mean much to human eyes
But in your genes the code is clear, more powerful than you realise

The DNA makes RNA, that's carried to the ribosome
And there the processes take place to make use of the chromosome
Three bases at a time are read, an amino acid specified
Then piece by piece the protein's built, the logic cannot be denied
From smallest cell to largest bone, the human body bit by bit
Is built from proteins, or at least a protein is involved in it
And so you see, both you and me, although the notion's comical
Are made and shaped and live and die by instructions genomical

So if your eyes are brown or blue, and if your hair be thick or thin
And if your blood is A or O, and what's the colour of your skin
Your chromosomes have made it so, there's nothing left for you to do
But pass them on, your genes will live in generations after you
A single letter wrong passed on, in future that could spell bad news
That's how genetic defects come, the future genome to confuse
And so we think genes cause disease, but that is not the whole of it
More oft than not things work out right, and that's what keeps the species fit.

You'd think that now the genome's read, there's nothing left for us to do
The truth is very different, let me tell you of this point of view
We know the genes, but by and large we don't yet know what role they play
There's still a lot of work to do to see exactly what they say
And there's more to life than genes, for we react to our environment
So predestination doesn't come just from the genome's government
We're still free souls to choose, and our choice would be quite comical
If we did nothing more now that we've cracked the code genomical

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 01 Jul 00 - 07:44 PM

FABULOUS!!!!!! I love it! GREAT job!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 00 - 06:09 PM

ohh..WOW! Totally awesome work!...Bradypus, your fame is assured...*grin*....

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jul 00 - 10:33 PM

BINGO! You win! What's the prize?

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: JenEllen
Date: 02 Jul 00 - 10:38 PM

I think the prize should be a wall chart of Bradypus' genes. :) ~Elle

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: bflat
Date: 02 Jul 00 - 10:40 PM

Bradypus, my, what genes you have!!! Just terrific!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 00 - 10:57 AM

Tune: Maryland, My Maryland

O DNA, O RNA, how precisely pair they bases;
O DNA, O RNA, how precisely pair they bases;
Thy purines and pyrimidines
Line up to make designer genes,
O DNA, O RNA, how precisely pair they bases.

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jul 00 - 11:42 AM

Also works to O Tannenbaum, if that isn't already the tune (I'm not from Maryland, to paraphrase Jean-Luc Picard)...very nice!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: raredance
Date: 04 Jul 00 - 09:59 AM

Aye, it's the one and the same tune. I just threw out the "Maryland" name for my own amusement. "Maryland, My Maryland" was a hugely popular song on the Confederate side of the US Civil War. You don't hear it sung much any more.

rich r

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Human Genome
From: raredance
Date: 04 Jul 00 - 10:10 AM

Here's information on a book and song published a few years ago by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

"Double Talking Helix Blues "
By Joel Herskowitz, New England Medical Center Hospitals, Boston; illustrated by Judy Cuddihy, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; additional text by Ira Herskowitz, University of California at San Francisco . 1993, Cloth (plus 12-minute audiocassette)
Price $15 ISBN 0-87969-431-9 "...the point of this story, I'll tell you right now.
Did you ever sit down and think about how
It is that each time a baby's born
It's a baby -- not a rabbit or an ear of corn?"

The answer is in DNA -- the stuff that genes are made of. Twin brothers Joel and Ira Herskowitz, physician and scientist, respectively, have come up with a new way to explain to children (ages 8+) how it is that when a person's genetic message is "copied," the result is another human being -- not a rabbit or an ear of corn.

Based on a song written by Joel Herskowitz while he was in medical school, the "Double Talking Helix Blues" is a book and audio tape presentation on the structure and function of DNA. The book includes the text for Joel's song, which is illustrated with spectacular paintings by Judy Cuddihy to provide an important visual component to the overall "lesson" on DNA.

This is followed by a guide written by Ira Herskowitz to explain the scientific terms and concepts in the song; this section describes in clear terms what, for example, a chromosome, nucleus, and molecule are. Accompanying the book is a 12-minute audio tape with performances of the song by Joel and Ira.

All in all, the "Double Talking Helix Blues" provides young readers with a wonderful introduction to concepts of cells and molecules, reproduction at the molecular level, and DNA and its structure. The target age group for this presentation is ages 8 and up, as well as teachers, scientists, and all those interested in molecular biology at its most basic level.

"Drawings of chromosomes, DNA, and Watson and Crick are cleverly interwoven with the lyrics to produce a pleasing story at whatever level the reader decides to adopt."

rich r