deCODEme
so, you ever wandered what your DNA sequence looked like ? for just under 1000 dollars you might just find out. not that it will reveal your future, maybe will give you some probabilities of some diseases, but most of the things that will happen to you will not be dictated by your DNA, at least not in simple uncomplex format as analyzed here. I wonder if they'll be able one day to add epigenetic data to the sequences. that might add an additional layer of information. and even then, I don't know if I would want to find out, would I become worried and paranoid if I knew I had a certain probability of having a disease ?
The thing I would be curious about would be to learn about the past. where did my ancestors come from ? I find journeys interesting. but I would not pay 1000 dollars for it.
There is an interesting discussion on the sciam web site about james watson's comments on race and intelligence. Is intelligence linked to our DNA ? which intelligence ? how do we measure intelligence ? is knowledge stored in DNA ? some of it....
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Nobel
A friend of mine last night asked me to explain what the scientist who just won the noble price in medicine did, and why it is so important, he mentioned it had something to do with DNA. At the time I had not heard about it yet, but I looked it up and found an article in the IHT telling about the medical repercussions of this technique as well as the adventurous story of the italian origins of one of the three.
The three scientists won the prize because they found a way of turning off ("knocking out") a specific gene in mice, any specific gene in fact, which has been very useful to study the function of the gene's product. This was especially useful because for a long time people thought that from one gene you get one product (a protein) which has a specific function. Very linear.
This is the idea, quite reductionist, that sold the human genome project: read the sequence, find the genes, find the cure.
The "knock out" experiments have shown that in reality this is true in only a few cases.
Most of the times "knocking off" one gene results in so many effects that it makes it difficult to pinpoint one specific function, this is because the gene's product interacts with so many other proteins in all kinds of cells, or because it is part of a chain reaction that can affect many different processes downstream. Other times the knockout has no effect at all, because our cells have a backup plan, in case anything goes wrong and they compensate, or because it is a gene that is used only under special, often stressful, occasions.
So these experiments have shown that things are not so linear after all, but a lot more complex, more of a network in fact, that is constantly changing with time.
At the end of the article the scientists are quoted as saying that at first their ideas were not accepted, and their grants were turned down because it was deemed an unfeasible project... five years later they finally got the grant, and five years after that everyone else was already using the technique. Now there are "mice banks" hosting up to 10,000 knockout mice !
The three scientists won the prize because they found a way of turning off ("knocking out") a specific gene in mice, any specific gene in fact, which has been very useful to study the function of the gene's product. This was especially useful because for a long time people thought that from one gene you get one product (a protein) which has a specific function. Very linear.
This is the idea, quite reductionist, that sold the human genome project: read the sequence, find the genes, find the cure.
The "knock out" experiments have shown that in reality this is true in only a few cases.
Most of the times "knocking off" one gene results in so many effects that it makes it difficult to pinpoint one specific function, this is because the gene's product interacts with so many other proteins in all kinds of cells, or because it is part of a chain reaction that can affect many different processes downstream. Other times the knockout has no effect at all, because our cells have a backup plan, in case anything goes wrong and they compensate, or because it is a gene that is used only under special, often stressful, occasions.
So these experiments have shown that things are not so linear after all, but a lot more complex, more of a network in fact, that is constantly changing with time.
At the end of the article the scientists are quoted as saying that at first their ideas were not accepted, and their grants were turned down because it was deemed an unfeasible project... five years later they finally got the grant, and five years after that everyone else was already using the technique. Now there are "mice banks" hosting up to 10,000 knockout mice !
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Music !
here's the much anticipated well overdue live music post !
Starting from the most recent, tonight I'm going to hear vanupié in belleville, don't know them at all but they seem like fun, good old fashioned crazy french music.
Last night was at the musica nuda concert. An italian duo, Ferruccio Spinetti e Petra Magoni, he on base, she on voice, many covers (nicely rearranged for the most part), some originals, some cabaret. It's a performing-singing jazz style that I have seen more and more recently. And speaking of, the opening band, Sashird Lao, a trio from Nice, a lot of fun, a mixture of jazz, rhythmic a capella, sampling, percussion, one of the two guys plays base with his voice, the other is a king of scat and the lady sings and writes egyptian songs. Check out their web site. Both groups I think are a lot more fun live than on a recording just because it is very impressive what they manage to do with very few instruments and incredible voices.
the show was at the Cabaret Sauvage, up at la Villette, perfect venue for this kind of performance, since it looks like a circus, with mirror and red velvet decorations (and they even grilled sausages outside!).
Other recent concerts have included Rilo Kiley, Wilco (excellent ! of course, and at the Bataclan, smallish venue), Bonnie Prince Billy (another one much more fun live than on record, but you gotta like that style).
On sunday it will be the New Pornographers, missed Neko Case last time she was in Paris bc I went to see one of the last Sleater Kineey concerts.... so I'm looking forward to this one, and then in october Ani di Franco, curious to see what she's been up to lately, kinda lost track in the past couple of years. The last time she had come to Paris it was for an acoustic show that was quickly sold out.
short but sweet, more soon....
Starting from the most recent, tonight I'm going to hear vanupié in belleville, don't know them at all but they seem like fun, good old fashioned crazy french music.
Last night was at the musica nuda concert. An italian duo, Ferruccio Spinetti e Petra Magoni, he on base, she on voice, many covers (nicely rearranged for the most part), some originals, some cabaret. It's a performing-singing jazz style that I have seen more and more recently. And speaking of, the opening band, Sashird Lao, a trio from Nice, a lot of fun, a mixture of jazz, rhythmic a capella, sampling, percussion, one of the two guys plays base with his voice, the other is a king of scat and the lady sings and writes egyptian songs. Check out their web site. Both groups I think are a lot more fun live than on a recording just because it is very impressive what they manage to do with very few instruments and incredible voices.
the show was at the Cabaret Sauvage, up at la Villette, perfect venue for this kind of performance, since it looks like a circus, with mirror and red velvet decorations (and they even grilled sausages outside!).
Other recent concerts have included Rilo Kiley, Wilco (excellent ! of course, and at the Bataclan, smallish venue), Bonnie Prince Billy (another one much more fun live than on record, but you gotta like that style).
On sunday it will be the New Pornographers, missed Neko Case last time she was in Paris bc I went to see one of the last Sleater Kineey concerts.... so I'm looking forward to this one, and then in october Ani di Franco, curious to see what she's been up to lately, kinda lost track in the past couple of years. The last time she had come to Paris it was for an acoustic show that was quickly sold out.
short but sweet, more soon....
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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