08 JUN 2016 by ideonexus
We Are Living in a Science Fictional Age
1) We’re living in a science fictional era, thanks to all the incredible technological and scientific discoveries we’ve made. (At the time, we were just starting to discover exoplanets and sequence the DNA of individual people.) In some sense, science fiction has “come true.”
2) This means science fiction is uniquely qualified to comment on the era we’re living in, and is the only pop culture that accurately reflects the world around us.
3) Meanwhile, science fiction itself has cl... 1 
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notes04 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
Picard Defends Data as Life
Commander Riker has dramatically demonstrated to this court that Lieutenant Commander Data is a machine. Do we deny that? No, because it is not relevant: we, too, are machines, just machines of a different type. Commander Riker has also reminded us that Lieutenant Commander Data was created by a man; do we deny that? No. Again, it is not relevant. Children are created from the 'building blocks' of their parents' DNA. Are they property?
[...]
Your honor, the courtroom is a crucible; in it, w...Folksonomies: life aritificial intelligence
Folksonomies: life aritificial intelligence
1 notes
notes10 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Vitamins Come from Living Things
Every vitamin is made by living cells — either our own, or in other species. Vitamin D is produced in our skin, for example, when sunlight strikes a precursor of cholesterol. A lemon tree makes vitamin C out of glucose. Making a vitamin is often an enormously baroque process. In some species, it takes 22 different proteins to craft a vitamin B12 molecule.
While a protein may be made up of thousands of atoms, a vitamin may be made up of just a few dozen. And yet, despite their small size, v...
1 They are part of our universal chemistry from our common origins.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
One Half of DNA is Parasitic
Parasites are not only incredibly diverse; they are also incredibly successful. There are parasitic stretches of DNA in your own genes, some of which are called retrotransposons. Many of the parasitic stretches were originally viruses that entered our DNA. Most of them don't do us any harm. They just copy and insert themselves in other parts of our DNA, basically replicating themselves. Sometimes they hop into other species and replicate themselves in a new host. According to one estimate, ro... 1 notes
notesThis doesn't sound right to me, but the claim is that Viruses have inserted so much DNA into our genomes.
23 APR 2012 by ideonexus
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...There is DNA everywhere, in seeds in bacterium, it's all around us, this programming for life.
28 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
We Are Lucky Because We are Going to Die
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth ...Folksonomies: atheism
Folksonomies: atheism
1 notes
notesSo many people never even got to exist.
05 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Mathematical Proof that an Arm's Length of DNA is in Ever...
We know from X-ray diffraction studies that a strand of DNA is 1.5 nanometers (1.5 x 10 to the -9 meters) in radius. Assume a cylinder 1 meter long (the arm's length) with a radius of 1.5 nanometers and work out the volume (length x pi r-squared). A typical animal cell is about 8 micrometers (8 x 10 to the -6 meters) in radius. Assume a spherical cell and calculate the volume (4/3 pi r-cubed). Do it yourself. You will see that the DNA fits easily inside the cell, with plenty of room for all o...Folksonomies: mathematics dna
Folksonomies: mathematics dna
Chet Raymo does the math to demonstrate this seemingly impossible scientific facts.
24 NOV 2011 by ideonexus
The Molecular Beauty of a Butterfly
When I see the butterfly, I imagine in my mind's eye the extraordinary chemical machinery of life, the winding loom of he DNA, the proteins linking like lock and key, the ceaseless hubbub of molecular commerce that goes on behind the scenes, from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to adult. Surely, no land of faerie is more magical than the transformation that occurs in the chrysalis, when a creepy-crawly caterpillar curls up in a self-made sack and rearranges its molecules to emerge as a win... 1 notes
notesChet Raymo describes what he sees when he thinks of a butterfly.
14 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Early Description of What Would Become DNA
Knowing what we know from X-ray and related studies of the fibrous proteins, how they are built from long polypeptide chains with linear patterns drawn to a grand scale, how these chains can contract and take up different configurations by intramolecular folding, how the chain- groups are penetrated by, and their sidechains react with, smaller co-operating molecules, and finally how they can combine so readily with nucleic acid molecules and still maintain the fibrous configuration, it is but...Folksonomies: dna molecular biology
Folksonomies: dna molecular biology
1 notes
notes"they form the long scroll on which is written the pattern of life."
10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
Watson Describes Rosalind Franklin
Even worse, Maurice continually frustrated Francis by never seeming enthusiastic enough about DNA. He appeared to enjoy slowly understating important arguments. It was not a question of intelligence or common sense Maurice clearly had both; witness his seizing DNA before almost everyone else. It was that Francis felt he could never get the message over to Maurice that you did not move cautiously when you were holding dynamite like DNA. Moreover, it was increasingly difficult to take Maurice's... 1 notes
notesThere some sexism here, but Watson is so candid describing everyone in his book.
