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DNA seen through the eyes of a coder
- hhm 19y agoAnd interesting errata and corrections here: http://programming.reddit.com/info/64dlz/comments/ http://programming.reddit.com/info/64dlz/comments/
- timr 19y agoMostly good, but there's also a rather huge hole: he left out RNA. It's more than just an object file; RNA molecules are exceedingly complicated "programs" in and of themselves. DNA gets transcribed into RNA, and from there, a whole universe of interactions takes place, for which we're only beginning to understand a few. The ribosome is an excellent example: it's a huge protein/RNA complex, which is also an enzyme responsible for enabling the second part of the central dogma. The closest analogy I can think of would be something like the source for an embedded language interpreter -- the cellular machinery compiles some genomic code, producing a machine which then has the ability to interpret other parts of the genome, in a different language. Of course, the more we learn, the more these crude analogies break down. For example, it's becoming increasingly clear that the three-dimensional structure of the DNA and RNA molecules play a critical role in determining their function and regulation; this, in turn, is regulated partially by their sequence. There's really no equivalent analogy to this phenomenon in the computer world. There were lots of other niggly errors (e.g. "GC" is hardly a universal "comment code" for the genome), but on the whole, a decent set of analogies.
- eusman 19y agonice! now where is my API?!