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Star Trek depicted one of the scarier applications of such a technology: There, The Jem'Hadaar are a genetically engineered race of warriors controlled by the D
by _throwaway1843 10y ago
Star Trek depicted one of the scarier applications of such a technology: There, The Jem'Hadaar are a genetically engineered race of warriors controlled by the Dominion, who exert power over them by being the sole provider of a substance (Ketracel-White) that they need in order to survive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Star_Trek) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Star_Trek)
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ketracel-white http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ketracel-white
If my reading of the paper is correct, the unnatural XY base pair doesn't have any function per se, but without it the organism fails to replicate its DNA and quickly dies. Hence you can argue that after introducing it, the XY base pair has a vital function, as without it the organism can't survive anymore. And since the organism has no way to synthesize X & Y itself, it needs to be supplied from the outside for its whole lifetime. This, in turn, provides a neat way to build "self-terminating" organisms that depend on a steady supplement of the given substance. One could of course argue that vitamins are exactly the same, but contrary to those the artificial base pairs would not be found in the wild, so supply could be controlled more easily.
- protomyth 10y agoThat was also part of the plot of the original Jurassic Park novel. The dinosaurs were [edit][edit]bred[/edit][/edit] with a need for lysine.
- throwaway34987 10y agoThe dinosaurs were bread?? The film never showed the bakery!
- paulddraper 10y agoCarbs kill.
- protomyth 10y agoautocorrect and I have a strained relationship
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Kenji 10y agoYou made me laugh out loud. Thank you for bringing humour to hackernews.
- andai 10y agobred* :)
- protomyth 10y agoSunday morning and I have a strained relationship
- dghughes 10y agoI just watched an old X Files episode (season 1) apparently aliens have six base pairs.
- dnautics 10y agoI remember that gel! It turns out though that you would never be able to make that gel, because the distance those bands are from the top depends on being able to incorporate the six base pairs using your PCR, so the idea of banding with gaps doesn't make sense, instead you would have a traffic jam at the spot where there was an alien base pair.
- astrodust 10y agoIt's a common trope. See also: Evolution, Fifth Element.
- _yosefk 10y agoIt's good as long self-termination is a nice-to-have feature. If you REALLY want them to self-terminate but you found out that they mutated and can now synthesize X & Y, you're in trouble. Genetically modified organisms are a bit scary, but genetically modified organisms that replicate autonomously are more than a bit scary. As programmers - a profession that managed to spread Shellshock, the dumbest imaginable backdoor, so widely as to make much of human population vulnerable, we should understand this better than others. We have no idea what happens in our own code, code that we copy from place to place ourselves, written in languages we designed and running on machines we designed, and there's nothing like mutation and self-replication with this stuff, for the most part. I kinda doubt that biologists modifying "code" which is actually pretty large molecules existing and interacting in a 3D space with a lot of forces pulling and pushing things, and without the benefit of comments or design documents, can make something that can be trusted to autonomously replicate and gradually mutate.
- jcoffland 10y ago> We have no idea what happens in our own code That's an overstatement. Sure code can be very complex but we actually can see exactly what's going on whenever we really want to. It's just that we cannot see what's going on with all the code all the time.
- portent 10y agocode can be very simple, and we don't always know what it will do. Simple example: can you tell me if this snippet of (python) code will ever terminate or not? x=0.5 while x<0.6 or x>0.7: x=3.59*x*(1-x) print x ... and what if the 3.59 was replaced by a different number - maybe 3.60 ? or 3.84 ?
- sbmassey 10y agoIt will eventually terminate, if only because the machine it is running on will eventually be shut down.
- dnautics 10y agoI think the goal is to give it a function. But in order to have it replicate in a cell, you need to have a way of selecting for it. Biosafety through selection is an easy "add-on" because you already had it by virtue of the fact that you needed it to get the real result.
- robbiep 10y ago>If my reading of the paper is correct, the unnatural XY base pair doesn't have any function per se, but without it the organism fails to replicate its DNA and quickly dies. That's actually differently to how I've read it - it appears to me that the XY pairing is stable and not harmful to the host and so is not degraded or removed (recognised as foreign by mis-sense DNA proof readers) but is therwise not performing any function, although some of the technical details are missing. As to your second point, we already have highly perfected 'terminator' technology, currently in 3 forms: 1) the infamous Monsanto terminator technology, where second generation seeds would not be viable (which, incidentally, would be a significant benefit to some farmers growing genetically engineered cotton and potentially their crops, as spilt seed from harvest would not germinate) 2) in bacteria and other organisms etc in the form that you describe above - ie lack of a substance is fatal - usually this substance is some generic low dose antibiotic that triggers a genetic switch when present 3) as you suggest, removing an organisms ability to synthesise a particular amino acid and having it dependent on food
- _throwaway1843 10y agoYes very good point, I didn't want to mention Monsanto but I also think they're probably the company that is most likely to use such a technology on animals in the future, if they might get the chance to do so.
- stcredzero 10y agoOne of the proposals for prolonging human life by eliminating cancer is to engineer humans who have no stem cells and no mechanisms for repairing telomeres. Instead, such engineered humans would have to undergo massive stem cell and telomere repair therapy once every few years or so. Such a mechanism would also do for an explanation for a Blade Runner style replicant that had an extendable lifespan.
- zhengyi13 10y agoAm I ridiculously cynical to think that similar problems around social/economic control of the new humans would immediately spring up?