Helix

He's really off the ball about this avian flu issue. Here we have a virus with a stunning evolution rate that is bearing down on us in pandemic proportions and he isn't even concerned. If this hits, it'll be bad.

Right but also it evolves at a breakneck pace. After each replication (making new viruses in the host cell) the genome mutates a bit. RNA doesn't "proofread" its copies at all. Avian flu can mutate so fast that vaccines will be obsolete months after they're created. It's the same thing with Influenze type B (common cold). There needs to be a vaccine that attacks stable molecules like M2. Not everything in the virus' genome changes, we have to exploit that.

Yes, that's all too true. Vaccine development is at a non-existant pace, what are we going to do in a pandemic? It's scary, truly frightening, to think about a global pandemic .

Wow great info Yggdrasil.

Most of us know about H5N1, the deadly avain flu that kills 2/3 of the infected. The governments have reappy dropped the ball on this. We are in shortage of vaccines and the Chinese are not trying (to my knoweldge) to contain the problem as well as they should. The U.S. is too busy chasing bioterror (a plausible threat...if we had proof) to really contirbute. So, what can be done?

Right. But in gene therapy, many viruses are sent in and affect all the cells associated with the defect. For example, cystic fibrosis effects the lungs so viruses with genes in them would be sent there.

No, you mis-read. I said we have little food left. Obesity is the problem, as I mentioned in my pervious post. We would have a surplus except everyone chooses to super-size it. The obesity "epidemic" is contributing to a lack of food.

Okay I put in bold the part that really was wrong. First, we are not "so inexperienced" in this. We have been cross breeding for thousands of years. We have been doing GM for decades which is a long time when talking about plants' lives. Secondly, we are not over-abundant in food. Notice the starving homeless people. Americans comsume a ton (figure of speech "ton") of food every year and there isn't so much left for the government to ship out. GM could put a dent in world hunger.

Well I think quoting a book that is several thousand years old and has been translated and retranslated dozens of times and not expecting a typo a bit optimistic. But in any case, no because we would have to turn telomerase on. I think Methuselah wasn't as good as we are in biotech.

In respect to intellect you may be right. But I hardly call a species that kills, enslaves entire sects of people and who consistantly ruins their planet all for the gain of green peices of paper "advanced." I think the chimpanzee has us on that award.

Well those dogs aren't technically "zombies" -- they're not dead and then rose. Their tissue was 3 hrs "dead". It's really media hype.

Well cellular immortality is possible in theory, but not necessarily the way you described it. You said, and it's a great idea, that there should be a mechanism made to make each cell clone as good as the original -- that way there would be no degradation. Well that may be inherently impossible because by virture of divisions, we age. Think about it, what you're saying is that as we age the daughter cells we produce are automatically deformed a bit and so on till death -- that's illogical because we know each daughter cell is just like the original (exempting mutations). There is a way, however, to create immortality. Telomerase is an enzyme that controls the ends of DNA, called telomeres. After each cell division the telomeres become shorter, and when they reach a critical (read: short) length the cell undergoes senescence (cell death basically). Telomerase's job is to lengthen telomeres, to add more telomeric repeats. Telomerase is normally off in somatic (normal) cells, but if we could turn it on cellular immortality would be, theoretically, possible.

That's a good question. I would assume the molecules accomponying the RNA would be different. I mean, it's sort of like asking what's different between apples and oranges. They just are.

Oh is it? I had heard it as "RNA subunit" but never more than that. Thanks.

Well if the admissions office is just a political frenzy, then fudge them. Go somewhere else, do your best and be better than them. Make them regret their choise.

Right, but what role does snRNA play? How does it fit in the telomerase picture. Maybe, and this is a theory, it doesn't play into telomerase but into ALT, the alternative to telomerase. That's a possibility, but not much is known about the ALT pathway.

Right, at the offset I should have said I am nit-picking.

No I didn't say it was, I am making an arcane point. I am saying that the DNA sequence that tRNA has gets turned into an amino acid because it is one. tRNA's attach their anticodon's to the codon and bring the amino acid with them. Therefore, the sequence tRNA's contain make it to the protein because they are the instructions for the amino acids.

If you're looking for informative stuff, rather than infotainment, then I suggest any publication by the HHMI. They are a large, internationally recognized institute with a few Nobels under their belts. Their publications are some of the best.

Right, I know all of that. But what I am saying is that their DNA (RNA) sequence gets turned into amino acids one way or another.

Sounds like sleep paralysis; you couldn't move your head after sleeping. Also lack of ability of speech is a good indicator. Or maybe your body is mad you use the word "teh."

That sounds a little too good to be true, nothing in biology (especially in cancer) is 100%. And if it's so great, why now? Shouldn't it have been discovered years ago? I still think telomerase is the closest to a universal marker, it is in 85-90% of all cancers and not in somatic cells.

So, their role in splicing (of introns) is recognition? Then you're proabably right, what else is there to recognize in telomeres? Maybe the sequence; checking if the sequence is correct.