[muglo] Re: 100% OT Biology

You're not kidding -- your undergrad training in biology and your own 
continuing education is a touch on the weak side :-(!!!

>Eric, how is it that suddenly it shows up deep in the heart of Canada?  
>Some
>cow flew over all the other provinces and decided to land in Alberta?  In
>light of the thread, don't you think this is a bit redundant?  Next you'll
>say the heat wave in France was due to a private organization?

The most parsimonious explanation is that the cow was fed contaminated feed 
-- I guess you've forgotten the stochastic nature of biological events. What 
farmer chooses to ignore guidelines, or is ignorant of them is not 
determined by geography, especially in the "global village". It is equally 
likely that a fool in Alberta will order feed from someone who rendered 
high-risk animals into feed destined for, say chickens, as for a fool in 
Alabama to do the same. The very fact that mad cow does not spread like a 
convention pathogen requires you to throw away all your preconceived notions 
of how disease forms.

>Knowledge of the nature of the infection would be properly placed before
>anybody could even comment on how the disease works, and is transmitted, if
>it indeed is that.

We do know how it is transmitted and under what conditions it is 
transmitted. In case you've forgotten (or never learned) -- mad cow is a 
protein disease ("prion"). It is transmissible only through direct maternal 
(paternal?) though non-genetic (i.e. it is not the gene that is inherited, 
but the mal-formed protein) inheritance or through the eating of the prions. 
It (KJD, a prion disease) can be inherited (in human systems) through 
inheritance of a faulty gene (I don't know if it's the actual diseased 
protein that's inherited or if it's a so-called folding protein (one which 
helps others fold properly)). Of course, there's also KuruKuru which was the 
first prion disease recognised in humans (though, I don't know if it was 
recognised as a prion disease before mad cow) which was common in cannibals 
who fed on other people's brains.

>restrictions.  Yes, it will catch up with them, but you have to recognize
>economic forces at play.

I find a little poetic justice in the fact that all that whining and pewling 
about a little bit of prevention and cost is what brings the house of cards 
crashing down around them :)

>Again, business.  You make it sound as if it's all surprising.

Just a comment, nothing more, nothing surprising.

> > 1. it was a case where BSE arose spontaneously, OR it was a BSE-like 
>disease
> > (this was my *very* first thought when I heard the report... especially
> > own to demonstrate that it can arise spontaneously!!! There's no reason 
>to
> > expect that BSE couldn't arise through mutation of a scaffolding-enzyme
> > (another protein that helps other proteins fold in the proper manner).
>
>Well, that nature of ribosomal mess-up is applicable in any organism then.
>The stats show that it's a stable system.

What stats? What stable system? Genetics is an *unstable* system -- the 
system is full of errors and full of error correction, ESPECIALLY as an 
organism ages! There's just a rather high level of tolerance (how do you 
expect evolution to happen if there's nothing to select (Lamarkian bunk not 
withstanding... though, there are *some* case where Lamarkian inheritance is 
possible (but not how he thought)) ;).

>Saying that 'mutations' is the
>cause, is a very unreliable scare, no more than 'well the power can go out
>everywhere all at once so we'll never use power'.  It does happen, but
>that's only to address that it does happen.

Not really (scare) -- it's the reality of the situation. Had this cow not 
been exposed to rendered animal protein this would've been the most 
parsimonious explanation (to paraphrase a number of great thinkers -- the 
simplest explanation is the best explanation). Whether people are stupid and 
ill-educated is not a concern. The reality of the situation is (plus, a 
spontaneous case of mad cow absolves people from responsibility whereas 
contaminated feed is very definitely *someone's* responsibility).

PS The ribosome has little to do with the folding proteins -- they do their 
dirty work after release of the amino-acid chain from the ribosome... many 
proteins (incl. enzymes, which are proteins) don't end up in the right 3rd 
shape without some external help. They also suffer quite a bit of 
post-translation modification (i.e. chemical changes) that can be the 
subject of an error.

Some proteins require interactions with DOZENS of other enzymes and proteins 
(post-translationally) before they end up the way they're supposed to 
function -- *one* crucial mutation in that system of genes (since 1 gene ~ 1 
protein (won't get into that who 1 gene <> 1 amino acid chain bit... 
introns, etc)) can generate a faulty product. One area of study I'd suggest 
you brush up on (b/c it's destined to change biology in the same way as the 
discovery of the triplet codon did) is "proteomics" (genomics, enzynomics, 
etc). This is the science of studying an organism's genome as a whole -- it 
is now possible to put all the known coding mRNA (or cDNA) sequences on a 
single (or a few) chip(s) in an array and do cell contents analysis (& lots 
of other exciting stuff). This is providing a wealth of information and 
opening up soooooooooo many stories.

> > 2. It was transmitted to the cow through contaminated feed -- likely 
>given
> > the cow's history (i.e. the cow was fed animal protein -- BSE is a 
>protein
> > transmitted only through the food chain or parent to offspring (not sure 
>if
> > it can be transmitted to an offspring through semen)).
>
>If this was the case, then it would have shown up elsewhere, given that 
>this
>route was possible.  Nothing else happened.  The stats would suggest to me
>that it had formed by itself.  That's nothing to get alarmed about, however

It's quite possible that it did show up elsewhere and either (a) was 
suppressed and the animal destroyed or (b) never detected. You need to 
remember that this *isn't* a contact-transmissible disease. You have to 
*eat* the contaminated feed and you yourself have to contribute to 
contaminated feed. All it takes is one unscrupulous or stupid farmer or feed 
provider to slip the feed in -- since this cow was 5-6 years old IIRC this 
is certainly not impossible (i.e. getting contaminated feed from the UK... 
transcontinental shipping of such stuff is quite common... which is one of 
the problems that lead up to this).

>Coombuya, panacea.  Reality is, things happen.  Another word for such
>malfunctions, is Cancer.  We don't speak in such ways of people that have

Cancer is something *very* different from mad cow (unless you're using 
cancer metaphorically for something else).

> > In a way the BSE crisis was useful -- it has made Europeans (and 
>especially
> > Brits) skeptical of genetically modified foods and has slowed (and even
> > reversed) their adoption (sometimes GM stuff has its place -- reducing
> > pesticide use in cotton for example, but in other cases it simply shifts 
>the
> > burden from one pesticide to another (& exacerbates the problem of
> > mono-culture and a miniscule genetic variability (& thus robustness) in 
>the
> > food supply)). Though I doubt that they're all that dangerous, 
>wide-spread
> > use of GM is an ecological disaster in the making (plus, there's no
> > guarantee that we won't see health consequences either (scientists who 
>claim
> > there won't be any are flat out lieing -- they cannot make such claims & 
>are
> > no longer speak as scientists but as cheerleaders of an untested
> > technology)) -- natural selection resulting in evolution is awfully 
>efficent
> > and with such a wonderful new set of genes on which to perform selection
> > mother nature must be rubbing her hands with glee (for all the havoc she 
>may
> > wreak... provided she's mischievous as she no doubt is ;).
>
>Natural selection is not at play in any food industry. Corn cannot survive
>as an organism, on its own. That's how far our system has come.

This is pure and very dangerous nonsense. Natural selection is exceptionally 
effective in agricultural systems (methinks you're working with 1960s and 
70s science/propaganda). Corn still has wild relatives all over the southern 
US right through to the northern Amazon! Regularly they find *wide spread* 
spread of alleles into wild species (Zea and Teosinte are particularly 
promiscuous) *only* found in domesticated corn. The same applies to nearly 
every other crop plant -- rice (there was a beautiful study of this in 
Nature a few years ago), wheat, canola/rapeseed, etc. And, in all systems, 
wild weedy relatives with some of the same alleles as their domesticated 
counterparts are *serious* problems (costing billions of $/annum in the US 
alone). We're starting to add some genes or gene combos with stunning 
properties to plants (glyphosate resistance (round-up ready), anti-freeze, 
growth, BT (Bacillus thurengiensis toxin), etc) and whenever there are *any* 
weedy or wild relatives around we're giving mother nature a wonderful 
opportunity to practice natural selection. I think you seem to forget that 
it take mother nature a while to get going and that plants are *very* *very* 
promiscuous creatures -- they spread their "seed" (pollen) EVERYWHERE!!!

>If we fail
>to recognize that the pressures in private organizations aren't a part of
>today's reality, then we'll soon (ignorantly) adopt practices that will
>erradicate our necessary infastructures (food, medicines, power) very
>quickly.

You come up with the strangest statements. If this relates to GM foods -- GM 
*foods* are doing nothing to improve people's lives or food supply. The 
overwhelming reason Monsanto got into GM foods and especially glyphosate 
resistance engineering is that their prized herbicide, Round Up came out of 
patent protection in 1999 (or was it 2000?). By developing Round-Up Ready 
XYZ they ensure continued sales of Round Up and since they are one of the 
largest seed suppliers around they can force or coerce farmers to adopt GM 
foods quite easily.

The complete public resistance to GM speaks volumes to the subterfuge that 
Monsanto (& the minor players) has used -- we don't get to choose whether we 
eat genetically modified foods!!! Europeans do and that has basically put 
the brakes on GM food production in NA (a damn good thing... it's not like 
the techology is going to go away but at least the experiment is going to be 
limited only to NA and the poor nations that the US and Canada can coerce to 
buy GM). Here in Canada the majority of people would *not* buy something if 
it was labelled GM. For many there is something intrinsically wrong with 
meddling with food. For others (like me) they'd rather that the food be 
demonstrated *unequivocally* safe, and is not going to generate an 
environmental catastrophe before it gets adopted in wide-spread use. I try 
to make sure that everyone else is the guinea pig :) :) :)

Ah well, the fun that biology becomes when you add the reification and 
arrogance of the marketing departments -- uncertainty be damned. We *know* 
what's going on. Not we *think* we know what's going on.

Eric.

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