[muglo] Re: 100% OT Biology

Eric D,

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

Not at all.  You seem to think you have it all wrapped up - private
organisation's mishaps, and whatever the newspaper writes.  It must be true,
it cost 50 cents to buy.  Have faith in the fact biology is more complex
than what we currently understand.  If it was that simple, we wouldn't have
to just place blanket attempts at restrictions of practices, rather than
eliminating the issue up front.
 
>> 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.

Not at all.  Since it's a multivariable process, you can't assume anything.
How do you assume how it's spread?  What is the carrier?  Your parsimonious
explanation?  Rather weak.  You'd get no research funding with that
explanation.  Perhaps you've forgotten the Scientific Model.
 
>> 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.

"Transmitted through direct maternal through non-genetic inheritance".  Um,
ok.  You'll have to explain non-genetic inheritance.  As well, folding
proteins.  At time of creation or like co-enzymes?
 
>> 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 :)

Yes, exactly.  

>> 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)) ;).

Genetics is not an unstable system.  Not by a long shot.  It's amazing how
students learn how all of this works, and how we have a small percentage of
mishaps and we end up studying how the whole system works by studying our
mutations and such, then all of a sudden, they think it's the mutations that
are the majority.  If that was the case, we wouldn't have organisms, just
chaos.  

> 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.

BTW, the ribosome has 100% to do with how proteins fold.  Tertiary structure
has a natural static formation, changeable or not.

> 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.

100%, not some, are made at the ribosome and assume a structure outside of
that translation.  I'm fully aware of proteomics.  What program do you think
I'm appying to?  Hehe.  We have one program at Ivey based on this.  It has
been alive for more than 20 years now.  I learned about it in grade 12
a...couple years ago.  That's when they said the human genome was to be
available in 2021.  That's why I changed my biology focus to a working
industry.  
 
> Cancer is something *very* different from mad cow (unless you're using
> cancer metaphorically for something else).

Just real world.
 
>> 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!!!

Wow, you have a real problem with the real world.  Perhaps you should get
out into the world of application and see how things work.  I'm talking
domesticated corn.  The stuff you buy.  Go to Loblaws.  Or, unless, you
harvest your own wild corn for some strange reason.  I find it ironic people
buy products that have been changed so much, consider it 'organic' or
somehow 'good product' and have no idea it's been modified through normal
unnatural selection by farmers.
 
>> 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.

Eric, wake up.  If there was nothing to improve people's lives, then why are
they successful at marketing them?  You think the explosion in the new
varieties of pineapple is based upon labelling?  Yer mad!  Perhaps you've
forgotten there are markets out there that actually respond to product
placement and change.  Perhaps you've forgotten that we do live in an
economic situation.  I don't know of many main street corners where there
isn't a business at any intersection.
 
> 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 :) :) :)

Yes.  For many they also see this 'mad scientist' application as creating a
monster with neck bolts.  How many of these people know what they are
talking about?  

And what do you consider safe?  Floating up your Amazon for your corn
varieties, I wouldn't call safe, nor practical.  One mad cow in Canada did
NOT dictate banning of Canadian beef through other government organizations
outside this country, no more than SARS should cut Toronto off people's
travel lists.  Yet another public service organization, the WHO seriously
messed up.  

> 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.

Which is more responsible?  Consumer or Marketing Department?  How do you
explain to people that have no clue that genetics was used to increase the
head retention on a beer, without them thinking David Suzuki should be
brought in to fight the monster making?

Anyway, my G5 is not showing up, there are no powerbooks, and I have classes
this week.  I gotta tone this down as I'm behind schedule already.

Slainte.


--- Rich Fortnum / Viaduct Productions / London (EST)
--- LDCMS Web-based Content Management System
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