h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The complaint about mixing DNA from organisms that could never breed suggests that there's something fundamentally different about the DNA in each species. Given a string of DNA, could you tell if it came from your cat or your African violet?
Or an unnaturally yellow fish?

The fear (an understandable one) seems to be that if you take a gene(s) from a cat, let's say for synthesising some hormone or other, and insert it into an African Violet, then when that particular gene is expressed the effect can be very unpredictable. Infact, as I understand it, it may not even still synthesise the original hormone at all if it depends on certain other controller genes or maybe the presense of some other chemical found in the cat.

You could use the violet to make your cat's farts smell nice. Maybe.

Humans share something like 35% of their DNA (very rough guesstimate) with your average shellfish... so nope, you can't tell. However, as Si points out, any gene can have an unpredictable effect in a new environment...

So, basically, the only objection comes if you insert the gene and it does something undesirable.

Personally, I think all this stuff about not playing in God's domain is a load of... well, I'm an atheist, we'll leave it at that, eh?

Whilst I'm on the subject... all this stuff about cloning humans being detrimental to human dignity (or something) is also daft - to me, at least. Methinks people watch too many science fiction films... I'm a fan of the genre myself, but there's no call to go *believing* everything you see...

A clone would absolutely, definitely and completely bear no more resembleance (personality-wise) to the original person that a brother, sister, or other close relative... if this weren't the case, a pair of identical twins could be considered the same person, which of course they aren't.

Hope I haven't offended anyone here... my views are occasionally somewhat unusual.

No. You could not tell what 'breed' the DNA is from. There are three types of DNA, Alpha, Beta, and 'Z' each has a slightly different conformation. Beta is the predominant form in organisms. The only way you could identify what type of oranism it came from is to look for the string of genetic info which codes for characteristic proteins in the parent organism. This is no easy task! So, thearetically, the genetic material from any organism can be spliced into any others genetic code. a consequence of this is that, theoretically, you could splice in the means to create feline fur production into violets thus giving you hairy plants.

I doubt it... you'd probably also have to splice the genes for skin production, blood vessels, eating, in fact, for being a cat... it's just not practical for a flower to grow fur, really.

Unless you then artificially supplied all the nutrients and stuff that it needed... and a suitable scaffolding for the structure... basically, it's not likely.

However, that's not to say that you can't do some pretty weird things...

I never said it was likely, just theoretically possible if not feasible, because lets face it theres absolutely no need to grow fur on a vio
let. Its a good job really because you would not only have people talking to plants but also stroking them too. Thats not something you need to see whilst walking the dog in the park.

Re: "pretty weird things" such as.....?

Such as... well, pretty much anything can be made to glow in the dark... um... various genes can be mutated which lead to different numbers of limbs, heads in the wrong places, etc... (this is regarding fruit flies, not mammals, I should add)... various scents can be added to different things, as well as colours... vaccines can, theoretically, be produced incide bananas or other plants - as can other medicines...

Sizes could be distored... unusually high amounts of growth and dwarfism in humans being genetic in basis, for example.

Then there's the holy grail of (some) genetics research... eternal life. Just think, we could continue this discussion for all of eternity

You sound pretty well up on the subject. As if from a scientific background perhaps. As to continuing this conversation forever: I think not because I would have to leave the computer to eat and sleep. May be we should find a way to genetically engineer things to need neither. Noway I could do without copius amounts of sleep.

Hmmm... yes, yes, no need to leave the computer... good idea! I'd start work on it right away, but I need to post some more incredibly-well-informed articles on as many pages as I can find .

"Scientific Background"... kinda. Well, I read New Scientist, and I'm at College studying physics... but I'm a whole fifteen years old (since nine days ago) - so don't go thinking I'm just a stuck-up little kid, 'cause I'm a stuck-up big kid now .

It was only a rhetorical question...

(the point being not that there's no potential danger from GM, but that the language of many anti-GM campaigners, implying that GM foods have somehow had foreign chemicals implanted in them (in extreme cases even speaking of GM foods "poisoning" any people who eat them), is wholly unhelpful both to the debate and to the public understanding of science.)

Sorry. Getting needlessly serious. I'll let you two get on with your conversation now...

It's a lot more than that. I recall that we share about 80-90% of our DNA with your average banana.

No potential danger from GM? Hmmm... if there's one thing the science of genetic modification has in abundance, it's potential... so it's difficult to rule out danger. Perhaps the most scary sceniaro is the use of genetic modification to deliberately produce biological weapons... for example, a variety of wheat could be produced that was both toxic to humans and resistant to a particular weed killer... the seed could be sprayed over enemy fields followed by the weed killer... result? Poisonous wheat takes over...

GM foods, in their current form is, however, a different matter. And one which, I (and others, probably) feel it's about time I shut up about .

An example to us all...