The idea that the genome is some kind of literal map of how to make an organism is a dead philosophy; it only still exists in popular science writing that hasn't caught up to the current knowledge yet. Interestingly, mk and I were recently at a conference (in Disney World!...a thoughtful place if I've ever seen one) where we heard a talk about humans absorbing a cow gene through eating beef. The copy numbers of the RNA that they could detect were low but very consistent. It's unclear what, if anything, this means, but it highlights that nature only knows four things: gravity, em, and the strong and weak forces. All the other rules (mainly those concocted by biologists) are us projecting what we think should happen. But, as Hume pointed out, you can't get an ought from an is.
Do you have any extra information on the talk about:a talk about humans absorbing a cow gene through eating beef.
In a nutshell, what we mostly study is the release from cells of small membrane structures known as exosomes. We were at a conference on this topic, and one researcher who studies the contents of blood borne exosomes kept finding an RNA sequence that didn't match any known human sequence (in about 60-70% of samples). He did some investigating and found that the sequence belonged to a cow gene called epidermal growth factor receptor (which is a gene humans have a homolog for, and is important in cellular growth and cancer biology). What was unclear was whether the cow DNA was absorbed and transcribed by the human machinery, or whether the cow exosomes were being somehow absorbed into the blood stream. My suspicion is that it's most likely the latter. Either way it's quite curious. The copy numbers were miniscule, so who knows if there is any biologic function associated with the gene, but it's interesting that it was always this one gene and always from cow (chicken and pork also have EGFR, for example, but they weren't detected). This wasn't actually the main point of his talk, but it was the most fascinating part to me. Please let me know if I can answer any questions more specifically, as I am happy to.
Very interesting. What are the ramifications, if any, of the findings?
A quote I shall be stealing from now on. Another in the same vein: -- Isaac AsimovFor now, it remains a weird observation. But then again, so did the slight deviation of the orbit of Mercury until Einstein came along.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka" but "That’s funny..."
This is fascinating stuff. I've done research where we've used Y-chromosome to detect the presence of transplanted cells in female rodents. We assumed that using male donors would give us a sure-fire way of detecting transplanted cells. I guess we were wrong. Did they? I wonder if these women were asked about previous pregnancies. I also wonder how the y-chromosome was detected. In situ-hybridization is typically the standard, and it is extremely easy to get false positives.In 2012, Canadian scientists performed autopsies on the brains of 59 women. They found neurons with Y chromosomes in 63 percent of them. The neurons likely developed from cells originating in their sons.