I'm an unabashed science geek; and my particular areas of interest include genetics, from paleogenetics to modern theriogenology. I've been particularly intrigued by the way that behavioral changes affect physiology, like the changes documented in the visible body characteristics such as colors and patterns in the course of the domestication of arctic foxes in the study linked here.
We are essentially engaging in using genetic material for healing purposes in our stem cell research, where we intentionally alter DNA through deliberate addition. We have for example, glow in the dark transgenic beagles with the addition of sea anemone material using a virus.
We've known for years that different species were successful hosts as well for diseases which jump species, the illnesses we refer to as zoonotic. And with the research into so-called retro-viruses like HIV/AIDS and other medical research into microbiology that use viruses to insert cancer treatments into cells, we are becoming steadily more aware of cellular biology and the changing DNA in those cells. And while we previously believed that it was not possible to breed anything but sterile offspring, like mules, from breeding two distinctly separate species together, we are now more aware of fertile female mules, called mollies, and other species where one or both genders may be fertile.
And of course, as I've written about here before, we know at least some of our own species has the DNA of other species in it, the neanderthal Denisovans. And of course we know that a wide variety of environmental factors from radiation to toxins can alter our DNA.
But while hybrids like mules, and more exotic hybrids between horses or other equines and various species of zebra, or lions bred to tigers, make sense, sort of, in being able to combine DNA even when there are differences in the numbers of chromosomes in each species. They are at least similar in those cases. (A sobering thought when we realize that we share 96% of the same DNA with chimpanzees....)
Now we find that when illnesses jump species, they can bring genetic material with them, in the case of cows, as much as 25%. We haven't looked to see how much of human DNA may be reptilian, but of course, there is a terrible temptation to speculate humorously on the possibilities as an explanation for all kinds of things, from the transfer of Voldemort's genetic material to the protagonist in the Harry Potter novels to characterizing some people as snakes in the grass, to the monsters of myth and heraldry like the griffin, sphinx, or mantichore to.....oh, just use your own imagination!
from Mother Jones:
We are essentially engaging in using genetic material for healing purposes in our stem cell research, where we intentionally alter DNA through deliberate addition. We have for example, glow in the dark transgenic beagles with the addition of sea anemone material using a virus.
We've known for years that different species were successful hosts as well for diseases which jump species, the illnesses we refer to as zoonotic. And with the research into so-called retro-viruses like HIV/AIDS and other medical research into microbiology that use viruses to insert cancer treatments into cells, we are becoming steadily more aware of cellular biology and the changing DNA in those cells. And while we previously believed that it was not possible to breed anything but sterile offspring, like mules, from breeding two distinctly separate species together, we are now more aware of fertile female mules, called mollies, and other species where one or both genders may be fertile.
And of course, as I've written about here before, we know at least some of our own species has the DNA of other species in it, the neanderthal Denisovans. And of course we know that a wide variety of environmental factors from radiation to toxins can alter our DNA.
But while hybrids like mules, and more exotic hybrids between horses or other equines and various species of zebra, or lions bred to tigers, make sense, sort of, in being able to combine DNA even when there are differences in the numbers of chromosomes in each species. They are at least similar in those cases. (A sobering thought when we realize that we share 96% of the same DNA with chimpanzees....)
Now we find that when illnesses jump species, they can bring genetic material with them, in the case of cows, as much as 25%. We haven't looked to see how much of human DNA may be reptilian, but of course, there is a terrible temptation to speculate humorously on the possibilities as an explanation for all kinds of things, from the transfer of Voldemort's genetic material to the protagonist in the Harry Potter novels to characterizing some people as snakes in the grass, to the monsters of myth and heraldry like the griffin, sphinx, or mantichore to.....oh, just use your own imagination!
from Mother Jones:
Study: Cows Are 25 Percent Snake
| Thu Jan. 3, 2013 7:20 AM PST
You vaguely know how DNA works, right? You get it from your parents. Well, hold onto your britches, because scientists from down under are about to turn your world upside down.
A study by Australia's Adelaide and Flinders Universities and the South Australian Museum has found that in complex organisms, DNA is not only transferred from a parent to its offspring like your science book told you, but can also be "laterally" transferred between species. The research, published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US, involved comparing dozens of DNA sequences from different species. It found that cows inherited up to a quarter their genes from reptiles.
"[I]n higher organisms, vertebrates, mammals and so on we tend to believe that later or horizontal transfer of genetic material just doesn't really happen," Prof. David Adelson, study lead and head of Molecular and Biomedical Science at the University of Adeliade told Australian ABC News. "But what we've shown is that there are DNA segments...called jumping genes…which are able to jump between species."
The similar DNA sequence that the two species share is able to "cut and paste itself within the genome," and thus replicate itself and jump to another species, Adelson explains. In that way, it's similar to how a retrovirus like HIV works, except it has "no way of making an infectious particle, so it's a bit of a mystery how it gets from [one] species to another," Adelson concedes.
He speculates that the DNA sequence could have "hitchhike[ed] as part of another virus," or could have been carried from snakes to cows by ticks, but that remains to be seen, as does how much mixing and matching there is among other species. "There's potential to see there's a lot more room for horizontal transfer than we previously supposed," Adelson says.
His next project will involve looking at whether human DNA sequences may also have jumped from other species. Who knows, maybe we're 32 percent shrimp.
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