{"id":2185,"date":"2007-06-14T13:28:48","date_gmt":"2007-06-14T19:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/oops-oh-hell-everyone-makes-mistakes\/"},"modified":"2007-06-14T13:28:48","modified_gmt":"2007-06-14T19:28:48","slug":"oops-oh-hell-everyone-makes-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/oops-oh-hell-everyone-makes-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Oops. Oh, Hell, Everyone Makes Mistakes."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"mine\"><p>We&#8217;re not &#8220;playing god&#8221; with DNA. We&#8217;re playing &#8220;not-too-bright kindergartener with razor blades.&#8221; All around the globe, people are actively manipulating genes just as top scientists say, &#8220;hey, who knew? <shrug>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My hope is that one of our inevitable blunders in genetic manipulation wipes out humankind. My respect for irony makes me fear we&#8217;ll wipe out everything else. Buy more guns today! <span class=\"sig\">mjh<\/span><\/shrug><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/06\/13\/AR2007061302466.html?referrer=email\">Intricate Toiling Found In Nooks of DNA Once Believed to Stand Idle<\/a> By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer<\/p>\n<p>The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is <strong class=\"highlight\">overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes<\/strong> and their role in human health and evolution, scientists reported yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>The new perspective reveals DNA to be not just a string of biological code but a dauntingly complex operating system that processes many more kinds of information <strong class=\"highlight\">than previously appreciated<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The findings, from a project involving hundreds of scientists in 11 countries and detailed in 29 papers being published today, confirm growing suspicions that the stretches of &#8220;junk DNA&#8221; flanking hardworking genes are not junk at all. But the study goes further, indicating for the first time that the vast majority of the 3 billion &#8220;letters&#8221; of the human genetic code are busily toiling at an array of <strong class=\"highlight\">previously invisible tasks<\/strong>. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Complicating the picture, it turns out that genes and the DNA sequences that regulate their activity are often far apart along the six-foot-long strands of DNA intricately packaged inside each cell. <strong class=\"highlight\">How they communicate is still largely a mystery.<\/strong> &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"highlight\">&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot more going on than we thought,&#8221;<\/strong> said Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, the part of the National Institutes of Health that financed most of the $42 million project.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like trying to read and understand a very complicated Chinese novel,&#8221; said Eric Green, the institute&#8217;s scientific director. &#8220;The take-home message is, <strong class=\"highlight\">&#8216;Oh, my gosh, this is really complicated.&#8217;<\/strong> &#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re not &#8220;playing god&#8221; with DNA. We&#8217;re playing &#8220;not-too-bright kindergartener with razor blades.&#8221; All around the globe, people are actively manipulating genes just as top scientists say, &#8220;hey, who knew? &#8221; My hope is that one of our inevitable blunders in genetic manipulation wipes out humankind. My respect for irony makes me fear we&#8217;ll wipe &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/oops-oh-hell-everyone-makes-mistakes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Oops. Oh, Hell, Everyone Makes Mistakes.<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}