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Bible Code; Genome Code
Craig Venter has been working to create an entirely artificial organism. A step toward that goal was achieved when it was announced that a completely synthetic genome has been created. According to the New York Times:
He revealed that the genome had five “watermarks,” sequences of genetic code that would spell words using the letters for the amino acids that would be produced by the DNA.Clever, but not all that novel of an idea.
Wired Science reported Monday that it had ferreted out the messages, with help from government scientists. One watermark said “VenterInstitvte,” using the unusual spelling because there is no amino acid represented by the letter “u.”
The other messages were CraigVenter, HamSmith, GlassandClyde and CindiandClyde for his co-authors Hamilton O. Smith, Clyde A. Hutchison III, John I. Glass and Cynthia Andrews-Pfannkoch. A Venter spokeswoman confirmed them.
So I'm wondering why Bible Code believers haven't been scouring the human genome for hidden messages from God. Or have they and I just don't know about it? With 3 billion base pairs, there've got to be a few YAHWEH's--in an interesting context, in some language--somewhere.
2 comments:
I remember reading about a similar technique that would allow for using bacteria as a data storage mechanism. With their super-high fidelity replication, compact size, low-cost maintenance, and ability to be frozen indefinitely, bacteria could easily out-perform anything we have in hard drives today.
Your challenge seemed very interesting, so I took you up on it. Here are my representative results of searching for specific protein sequences. First, "YAHWEH":
Thyroid adenoma-associated protein (YTHWEH)
TonB-dependent receptor (YSHWEH)
DNA topoisomerase III (TAHWEH)
methionine aminopeptidase (AAHWEH)
reverse transcriptase [Bombyx mori] (IAHWEH)
No exact matches. Bummer. So I shortened it to the "correct" spelling, "YHWH":
Polyribonucleotide nucleotidyltransferase (YHWH)
DNA polymerase II, large subunit DP2 (YHWH)
Rac GTPase-activating protein BCR/ABR (YHWH)
Glycosyl transferase, family 2 (YHWH)
Okay, so no surprise that I would find lots of hits with such a short sequence. Too bad none of them were really interesting contexts---I can't think of a way to associate glycosyl transferase to deity.
Oh well. On to some more fun, I searched for "NEPHI" and "ISRAEL":
gluconate transporter (NEPHI)
transcriptional co-repressor Sin3A (ISRAEL)
Maybe I should have searched for "ISAAC" and "AVRAHAM" as well.
Lastly, I searched for "TRINITY":
hypothetical protein FG05110.1 (TRINITY)
Kind of concerning that it was only a hypothetical protein. But there you have it: "trinity" is both non-Biblical and non-proteomic. {smile}
BrianJ,
Thanks for going the extra mile. Of course, if you limit yourself to actual protein-coding sequence you will miss--what, 98%?--of your opportunities.
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