Jan 14, 2010
Jul 5, 2009
Biological lego
Thanks to Martin Anazco for linking to this video about creating custom DNA which led me to this:
The Registry is a collection of ~3200 genetic parts that can be mixed and matched to build synthetic biology devices and systems. Founded in 2003 at MIT, the Registry is part of the Synthetic Biology community’s efforts to make biology easier to engineer. It provides a resource of available genetic parts to iGEM teams and academic labs.
Partsregistry.org and see also: http://openwetware.org/wiki/Protocols
This is rather neat, if a little scary. I just hope we can progress safely without jeopardising billions of years of evolutionary heritage. But nice one science, sharing information so well.
Jun 28, 2009
The World According to Monsanto
I’ve just been watching ‘The World According to Monsanto’. It’s pretty compelling stuff. As one of the contributors says,
“Seed is more powerful than bombs, more powerful than guns”
and given that, you’d have thought that we’d be a little more careful about what we do it.
70% of the food in the USA contains bio-engineered ingredients. They are not allowed by law to label if a product contains GM ingredients.
Monsanto has repeatedly falsified studies, bribed, and spread misinformation, sometimes even allowing their agents to masquerade as scientists to run a smear campaign against those scientists who contest their studies.
This is simply bad science.
I’m not anti-GM crops, but I do think that progressing at such speed, with such scant and ambiguous positive evidence, is dangerous folly. This is, after all, the whole world’s food supply we’re talking about.
In fact this whole documentary is basically about bad science: tailoring interpretations to achieve economic ends. It’s worth having a watch. It’s even conveniently divided up into bite-sized 10 minute chunks.
Summary of arguments against GM crops:
- Don’t do what they say
- Tested to only very low standards, riding on a ’substantial equivalence’ test (NB this similar to how Thalidomide occured)
- Can not be contained and can thus undermine the genes of related and non-related organisms.
- Create dependency on chemical companies
- Take from the soil without putting back
- Reduce biodiversity and encourage monoculture
- Contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance
- Genes can mutate with harmful effect
- “Sleeper” genes could be accidentally switched on and active genes could become “silent”
- They impact on birds, insects and soil biota
- Transfer of allergenic genes, triggering reactions in humans and animals
- Mixing of GM products in the food chain
- Transfer of antibiotic resistance
- Loss of farmers’ access to plant material since keeping seeds it not permitted both by legal terms, and terminator and / or traitor genes
- Intellectual property rights could slow research
Sources: ‘The World According to Monsanto’ Online For Free. | The Good Human and http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/focus/2003/gmo8.htm
Jun 21, 2009
I have nothing to fear from a DNA database
It’s tempting to think that DNA databases are OK, because it’s just a way of uniquely identifying someone, just like a long number which no one else has, which is intrinsically linked to you.
If you believe that, I can see why you think you may have nothing to worry about.
But the problem is that we do not know as much about DNA as we’d like to think we do.
Not only are our ideas about the uniqueness of DNA false, but also we do not know what DNA is responsible for. There have been studies claiming correlations with depression, alcoholism, and homosexuality, and now there’s a new study which shows a correlation with violent crime.
“This gene is predicting gang membership, but it’s really predicting it for the very violent gang members,” Beaver says.
from ‘Gangsta gene’ identified in US teens, 19 June 2009, New Scientist
We don’t have to look too far back in our history (uh oh), or too far in our future, to ponder what kind of rules well-meaning governments will do with this information. It would take a Government with considerably more spine than those we have seen of late to not react to a Daily Mail headline of “Government does nothing to stop violent gang members”
Read ‘6 reasons never to give up your biometric data or DNA‘
Jun 19, 2009
Mass dolphin stranding linked to navy exercises
An investigation into the UK’s largest ever mass stranding of common dolphins has identified military activity as the most probable cause – although no single activity can be definitively linked to the stranding.
via New Scientist.
Apr 17, 2009
DNA databases require so much regulation that abuse is inevitable.
Anyone who studied a little genetics in high school has heard of adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine – the A,T,G and C that make up the DNA code. But those are not the whole story. The rise of epigenetics in the past decade has drawn attention to a fifth nucleotide, [...]. And now there’s a sixth. [...]
[This] suggests that a new layer of complexity exists between our basic genetic blueprints and the creatures that grow out of them. “This is another mechanism for regulation of gene expression and nuclear structure that no one has had any insight into,” says Heintz, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “The results are discrete and crystalline and clear; there is no uncertainty. I think this finding will electrify the field of epigenetics.”
Genes alone cannot explain the vast differences in complexity among worms, mice, monkeys and humans, all of which have roughly the same amount of genetic material. Scientists have found that these differences arise in part from the dynamic regulation of gene expression rather than the genes themselves. Epigenetics, a relatively young and very hot field in biology, is the study of nongenetic factors that manage this regulation.
Source: EurekAlert, via @azeem
This is why I’ll go to prison (oh the irony) before I allow myself to be on a DNA database.
(EDIT 19 Apr 09: I realised I had more to write and have pulled information out into this post for greater clarity: Reasons not to be on a DNA database.)
There are many, many arguments against genetic databases, and very few reasonable ones for.
If we have genetic databases at all, they should be
- run by a transparent organisation, independent of government
- only collect information from those convicted of crimes
- never collect samples from minors
- only used for security and justice
- routinely protected with multi-tier anonymity
- only permitting named access at the end of a regulated judicial process
How the EU is involved
(Updated: Sunday 19th April 2009 — I forgot to include all the EU bits.. whoops!)
It is in situations like this, where one’s own government is being spineless and settling at an unnecessarily draconian point on the liberty <–> security continuum, that the supra-national EU becomes really rather useful. After a celebrated petition by 2 British men,
the European court of human rights in Strasbourg said that keeping innocent people’s DNA records on a criminal register breached article eight of the Human Rights Convention, covering the right to respect for private and family life.
It has been 4 months since that ruling, and the illegal data, which is to say that of people like you who have never been convicted of a crime, still has not been removed.
It is a odd and disappointing that the same EU has insisted that fingerprints be stored on our passports in future, but this is a far less bitter pill to swallow, and with far more moderate side effects.
Even though the Americans are stepping up their database drive, a move towards a biometric state and all its sinister implications is not inevitable. The inevitable is only that which we fail to avoid.
Biometric security and surveillance is essentially an arms race, which raises the stakes for all of us. It erodes our liberty, freedom of movement, freedom of protest, right to privacy, and right to security. The small amount of crime we have does not justify gambling these hard fought for rights.
Jan 19, 2009
The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller
The Buckminster Fuller Institute is awarding a $100,000 prize each year for comprehensive solutions that radically advance human well-being and ecosystem health.
Jan 9, 2009
Biggest news of the decade: Body repair ‘could be ramped up’
Quite amazing.
“A combination of drugs could trick the body into sending its repair
mechanisms into overdrive, say scientists. The technique could be used
to speed the healing of heart or bone damage, they claim. The bone
marrow of treated mice released 100 times as many stem cells – which
help to regenerate tissue. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7815449.stm
The way this is on the BBC website as a small story reminds me of a
part in a science fiction novel (Red Mars is the one it brings to
mind, but others also apply) where the scientists announce some
research they’ve been doing on cell repair. In Red Mars, it’s only a
page long, and used as a plot device to allow the main characters to
live long enough to allow the full story of colonising Mars to play
out. But I’ll bet this is the biggest news of the decade in terms of
historical impact.
Nov 24, 2008
I’m stunned, or ‘Why I’m outta here #874′
It’s tough to know how to react to the two headlines which appeared adjacent on the BBC News website today.
Downs’ Syndrome screening seems to be a technology which has backfired. The well meaning people who developed it thought that people would see the quality of life experienced by those with Downs’ Syndrome vs those without and make the sensible decision.
Turns out that the sensible decision is trumped by the difficultly of taking a hard decision, and people have been shying away from doing the decent thing. When asked why,
- 20% said they had known somebody with Down’s
- 30% cited religious or anti-abortion beliefs
- 30% felt life had improved for people with Down’s
- 20% didn’t believe the result
So that’s 50% of people who are ignoring the medical advances. Let’s have a few facts about Downs Syndrome:
- One in 1,000 babies born in the UK has Down’s syndrome
- People with the syndrome will have some degree of learning difficulty
- Life expectancy is on average between 50 and 60 years old
- Down’s syndrome is not classed as a disease, but does lead to a higher chance of developing a host of illnesses
- Nearly half of those with the syndrome will have heart defects, while hearing and sight problems are also more likely
- There is also a greater risk of dementia, leukaemia and testicular cancer
Whilst people are very adamant to say that they don’t see that they should choose between one life and another, they probably aren’t thinking straight. Given the choice of being born into a body with or without Downs’ Syndrome, you’d have to be a bit weird to choose Down’s Syndrome. You live a shorter, more painful life, more dependent on others for your wellbeing. How can that be good for the individual, the family, or society?
But people have to be free to make decisions. I just wonder if they’re being presented in the right way.
Those 20% who didn’t believe the result, for example, need sitting down and talking to. You can’t just ignore certain evidence in a matter of life and death.
The 30% who cited religious beliefs need sitting down with a TMS machine, and then asked the question. Religion certainly has its place, but sometimes it does call it badly.
The 30% who felt life had improved could be asked if they’d like an injection which would simulate the effects of Downs’ Syndrome for the next 5 years to see how they REALLY think about that statement.
The 20% who know someone with Downs’ Syndrome should probably have a good conversation with that person to ask “given the choice of having this, or not having this, which would you go for?”
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