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THE DELTA. “Genetic evolution is slow. Progress in artificial intelligence is fast. Only a handful of genes separate Homo sapiens from our hominid ancestors on the African savannah. Among our 23,000-odd protein-coding genes, variance in single nucleotide polymorphisms ("SNPs") accounts for just a small percentage of phenotypic variance in intelligence as measured by what we call IQ tests.” http://www.biointelligence-explosion.com/ View in LinkedIn

ONE VIEW. “Machine intelligence will, more likely than not, appear within a century, even if the progress rate to date does not strongly suggest the next few decades.” http://intelligence.org/files/AIFoomDebate.pdf View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends focused on prions. Can an aberrant host protein that evolves, has no DNA, and forms distinct strains be called a species, or even a separate life form? In the standard book of biology, the answer is no. Our understanding of life diversity is blindfolded by dogma, and if we want to find life beyond Earth, we had better wake up to what is under our very noses. View in LinkedIn

PRION STRAINS. “In support of the virino hypothesis is the existence of different strains of prions that cause differing patterns of disease and breed true; the existence of strains in pathogens is usually the result of changes in the nucleic acid sequence of the infectious agent.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn

VIRINO CONCEPT. “Some researchers believe that the prions are formed when PrP associates with a foreign pathogenic nucleic acid. This is called the virino hypothesis. Viruses consist of proteins and nucleic acids that are specified by the virus genome. A virino would also consist of proteins and nucleic acids, but the protein component is specified by the host genome, not the pathogen genome.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn

NEW TYPE OF DISEASE. “The mounting experimental evidence has generated great interest in what appears to be a totally new kind of mechanism of disease.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn

DUMB PROTEIN? “We now know that a normal cellular protein, called PrP ( for proteinaceous infectious particle) and which is found in all of us, is centrally involved in the spread of prion diseases. This protein consists of about 250 amino acids.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn

INFECTIOUS AND HEREDITABLE. “Confusingly, researchers also recognized that some prion diseases, such as GSS, were inherited. The pattern of inheritance was recognized as being autosomal and dominant, meaning that if a parent developed GSS, there was a 50 percent chance that a child of either sex would also develop the disease.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn

LATENCY. “The latest research suggests that the infected meat may pose a threat to human health, but the significance of that threat may not become apparent for years. Although it is generally considered a British problem, BSE is almost certainly a natural disease of cattle, so it is undoubtedly found in other countries as well.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn

FAMOUS DISCOVERY. “In the 1950s an epidemic transmissible disease called kuru, similar to CJD, was identified in the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea. Transmission of the disease occurred during a ritual funeral process in which the brain of a dead tribe member was removed from the skull, cooked and eaten.” https://lnkd.in/dkdVKcb View in LinkedIn