It's Raining DNA Outside

It is raining DNA outside. On the bank of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air. ... [spreading] DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. … It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programs; it's raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn't be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs.

Notes:

There is DNA everywhere, in seeds in bacterium, it's all around us, this programming for life.

Folksonomies: wonder dna

Taxonomies:
/science/weather (0.606772)
/home and garden (0.357812)
/art and entertainment/visual art and design/design (0.247065)

Keywords:
downy seeds (0.983648 (negative:-0.288588)), large willow tree (0.823370 (neutral:0.000000)), building willow trees (0.800184 (neutral:0.000000)), DNA (0.635450 (negative:-0.682870)), floppy discs (0.554349 (negative:-0.589965)), Oxford canal (0.540669 (neutral:0.000000)), plain truth (0.506684 (negative:-0.497696)), new generation (0.506270 (neutral:0.000000)), specific instructions (0.488332 (neutral:0.000000)), bacterium (0.305282 (negative:-0.376316)), metaphor (0.285038 (negative:-0.503639)), algorithms (0.266107 (neutral:0.000000)), programming (0.265774 (neutral:0.000000)), life (0.265665 (neutral:0.000000)), bank (0.260097 (neutral:0.000000)), garden (0.259594 (neutral:0.000000)), air (0.258841 (negative:-0.288588)), characters (0.257530 (neutral:0.000000))

Entities:
Oxford canal:GeographicFeature (0.880072 (neutral:0.000000))

Concepts:
Trees (0.946109): dbpedia
Willow (0.881100): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Shrub (0.874907): dbpedia | freebase
Salicaceae (0.747632): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Capsule (0.746312): dbpedia
Salix caprea (0.743566): dbpedia | freebase | yago

 The blind watchmaker
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book:  Dawkins, Richard (1986), The blind watchmaker, W. W. Norton & Company, Retrieved on 2012-04-23
  • Source Material [books.google.com]
  • Folksonomies: science


    Schemas

    12 JUN 2011

     The Scientist's Unique Perspectives on Nature

    Examples of scientists giving us unique explanations of natural phenomena.
     28