An interesting project has begun to catalog every known species, Wikipedia style. That is, each species gets its own web page, with photos, video and sound recordings, and locator maps when possible, and is subject to the same public editing process practices on Wikipedia.
I wonder if someone will eventually add the DNA sequence of each species…
Update, 5/9/07: A video showing what the encyclopedia of life will look like can be found here: http://www.eol.org/home.html
Scientists have figured out how to snip DNA from human cells and insert it into mice embryos to let previously color blind mice see color. Before the mice didn’t grow the right kind of cone cells in their retina; now they do. Eventually I expect this therapy to be available for people.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201841.html?nav=rss_nation
Of course it doesn’t have to stop at curing colorblindness. Perhaps people could be given the cells of creatures that sense ultraviolet or infrared light, for example.
Will we be the generation that sees many Science Fiction fantasies turn into realities?
I read an interesting Fortune magazine article that profiles Sirtris, a startup company that is trying to develop age slowing technologies based on the recent discoveries about resveratrol.
What’s resveratrol? As the magazine article states:
Resveratrol is the ingredient in red wine that made headlines in November [2006] when scientists demonstrated that it kept overfed mice from gaining weight, turned them into the equivalent of Olympic marathoners, and seemed to slow down their aging process. Few medical discoveries have generated so much instant buzz – even Jay Leno riffed about it in his opening monologue.
Prior to this new research on resveratrol, the one known way in mammals to slow down some of the markers of aging has been caloric restriction. Caloric restriction has certainly worked in lower order mammals, but large scale human studies have yet to be completed. Even if caloric restriction was shown to work in people, it would probably be difficult for people to have the discipline to do, since it effects lifestyle pretty significantly.
The Fortune article stated something interesting about resveratrol’s relation to caloric restriction:
The mouse studies [examining the effect of resveratrol] also gave hints that resveratrol induces basic metabolic changes akin to those that [caloric restriction] does. One of the most intriguing was the production of fresh mitochondria, the key components of cells that serve as power generators; they essentially burn sugar in slow motion to release energy. But like coal-burning power plants, mitochondria also pollute. In particular, they spew highly reactive chemicals called free radicals, which damage DNA and other important molecules in cells. Over time the radicals deteriorate the mitochondria themselves, which degrades their efficiency, causing yet heavier production of free radicals. The end result is a cell-degrading snowball effect that is thought to be a major cause of aging.
Here’s the entire Fortune article:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/18/magazines/fortune/Live_forever.fortune/index.htm
A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, gas and plasma. They often come in a spiral shape or an amorphous blob. However, about 300 light years away from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, there is an 80 light year long nebula, which appears to be in the shape of a double helix. I believe this is the first double helix nebula to be discovered. There may be many more, it’s just that the instruments used to detect nebula weren’t sophisticated enough yet to detect their double helix structure. Most of our genetic information is encoded in strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which also takes the shape of a double helix.
Isn’t it nice to see archetypal shapes repeat? Maybe it’ll spawn a religion or two. I wonder if the similar structure is because electromagnetic force on a cellular level has a similar effect (diminishing by the square of distance) to gravitational force on a large scale. Of course DNA in your body doesn’t have a spinning centerpiece.
For more, see http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060315/sc_space/cosmicdnadoublehelixspottedinspace
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