Month: September 2022

IN THE HANDS OF THE MASSES. “The engineering of life is like software engineering and computer-assisted genetic design will give us the ability to make viruses and vaccines. He asked, "What happens when we can make a vaccine as easily as we can make a tweet?" http://www.computerworld.com/article/2471716/healthcare-it/dna-hackers--synthetic-biology-weaponized-virus--zero-day-exploit-to-infect-your-brain.html View in LinkedIn

PERSONAL HACKING. “Synthetic biology, when tweaked by bioterrorists, could be used for exploitation and "not only to drive large-scale outbreaks. They will also be able to create targeted attacks against a single individual based on his or her own unique biology," http://www.computerworld.com/article/2471716/healthcare-it/dna-hackers--synthetic-biology-weaponized-virus--zero-day-exploit-to-infect-your-brain.html View in LinkedIn

GENE HACKING. “If DNA becomes the next big hacking frontier, it would open a plethora of "Pandora's Box problems.” http://www.computerworld.com/article/2471716/healthcare-it/dna-hackers--synthetic-biology-weaponized-virus--zero-day-exploit-to-infect-your-brain.html View in LinkedIn

“BIO-CRIME today is akin to computer crime in the early 1980s. Few initially recognized the problem, but one need only observe how the threat grew exponentially over time." http://www.computerworld.com/article/2471716/healthcare-it/dna-hackers--synthetic-biology-weaponized-virus--zero-day-exploit-to-infect-your-brain.html View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend and concludes this weekend on the theme of double fertilization in flowering plants (Angiosperms). It is an impressively complicated way to reproduce. One interpretation of the why, is that during evolution, various hybrid forms are stitched together, and the survivors are not always efficient, but represent combinations and work-arounds that were just compatible enough to survive. Nature and perfection are not the same thing; she is usually composed of bizarre genetic meldings from disparate beasts glued together by happenstance. View in LinkedIn

GENES LIGHT UP. “Transcriptomic analyses have recently revealed an unsurpassed level of complex gene regulation relating to pollen–pistil interactions. Microarray analysis revealed that the transcriptome of Arabidopsis pollen tubes that have grown through pistil tissues using a semi-in vivo pollen tube growth system is significantly distinct from transcriptomes of pollen grains or pollen tubes grown in vitro, and implicate de novo gene expression in pollen tubes due to interactions with the female tissues.” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674205214608996 View in LinkedIn

FEMALE TISSUES COME ALIVE. “Thus, in contrast to the handful of gene expression changes during hydration, a very large number of gene expression changes occur when pollen tubes grow through pistil tissues. For example, over 1000 genes had significantly different expression in comparisons between semi-in vivo-grown pollen tubes and dry pollen, and a similar number after 4-h pollen tube growth; expression of a unique set of 383 pollen tube-expressed proteins present in pistil-interacted pollen tubes were identified.” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674205214608996 View in LinkedIn

VIVID CELLULAR COMMUNICATION. “Intensive gamete crosstalk takes place and, after a process involving recognition, sperm activation, and adhesion of plasma membranes, both gamete pairs fuse (plasmogamy) and sperm contents are released inside female gametes.” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674205214608996 View in LinkedIn

CLOSING THE GATE. “Once double fertilization has been successfully achieved, it is important to establish barriers to prevent the attraction of additional pollen tubes and to prevent the release and fusion of multiple sperm with single gametes.” https://lnkd.in/dWq_2Eq View in LinkedIn

BATTLE OF POLLEN TUBES. “In the grasses, multiple pollen tubes exit the transmitting tract in a race to reach the female gametophyte. The fastest-growing pollen tube penetrates the micropyle and releases its contents into the receptive synergid. Additional pollen tubes seem to be repelled, as heterofertilization, which indicates that sperm cells of two different pollen tubes have fused with both female gametes, is very rare in maize (about 1%).” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674205214608996 View in LinkedIn