Month: September 2022

PHYSICAL VS BIOLOGICAL SELECTION. "Recent investigations surprisingly indicate that single RNA “stem-loops” operate solely by chemical laws that act without selective forces, and in contrast, self-ligated consortia of RNA stem-loops operates by biological selection." https://lnkd.in/e6fRF6A View in LinkedIn

QUASISPECIES CHALLENGED. "Our mainstream picture of RNA virus evolution is determined by the quasispecies concept of Manfred Eigen. It was a very helpful theoretical model within the framework of physical chemistry to paint a picture of viruses with an evolution rate a multitude faster than evolution of cellular organisms." https://lnkd.in/e6fRF6A View in LinkedIn

VENTER VIEW CHALLENGED. "In his view, the question of Erwin Schrödinger What is life? has been answered. “Life is a DNA software system”, and all living things are reducible to DNA sequences. The DNA-based software creates as well as directs the more visible “hardware” of life, such as proteins and cells." https://lnkd.in/eG_TcWz View in LinkedIn

VENTER'S PERSPECTIVE. "In his view, organisms are mechanistic apparatus-like molecular structures that work as computing machines according the algorithm-based programs encoded in the DNA storage medium. Or, rather, are they coordinated complex entities that share bio-communication properties that may vary according to different context-specific needs?" https://lnkd.in/eG_TcWz View in LinkedIn

LIMITATIONS. "In complex genomes like humans, the coding genes are about 1.5% of the total genome whereas the abundance of non-coding RNAs are about 98.5%. This means Craig Venter’s household appliance box could focus only on the 1.5% coding sequences." https://lnkd.in/eG_TcWz View in LinkedIn

RHETORICAL QUESTION. "Is DNA the unequivocal syntax for sequences out of which one can construct living cells, viruses and phages for a household appliance? Or is the superficial molecular syntax of DNA solely the result of evolution’s long inserts and deletions of an abundance of various genetic parasites that shape host genomes?" https://lnkd.in/eG_TcWz View in LinkedIn

Spanish photographer Xavi Bou uses an antique photo-technique to freeze birds in flight View in LinkedIn

SEQUENCE AND MEANING. "The most crucial questions are: do DNA sequences contain a hidden deep grammar structure that varies according to the meaning and context of environmental insults; do DNA sequences match with high fidelity environmental circumstances that led to epigenetic markings and memory? If yes, this would then mean that the identical DNA sequence may have various- even contradictory-meanings. In fact, this scenario is emerging as true." https://lnkd.in/eG_TcWz View in LinkedIn

COEVOLUTION. "A rather astonishing conclusion of these facts is that randomly associated RNAs that have no evolutionary history show the same structure-dependent compositional bias as ribosomal RNAs. This means that the differences do not depend on selection processes but on the overall composition of the RNA consortium." https://lnkd.in/eUYvi8e View in LinkedIn

SHARED MOTIFS. "Each RNA nucleotide of any natural RNA sequence is part of one of these secondary structure motifs: stem, loop, bulge, junction or end, or another unpaired region. This means that the composition of RNA bases follows the stem-loop architecture as an appropriate tool, to store information and build more complex ensembles that together act catalytically as ribozymes." https://lnkd.in/eUYvi8e View in LinkedIn