Whidden
KANSAS LAW DOG
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Registered: May 2003
Local time: 02:45 AM
Location: Yon Woady Pump
Posts: 16673
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/02.html
I watched the show this week and found it NEATO.
What I got out of it:
DNA is the blueprint, RNA is what makes the proteins from the blueprint.
this scientist dude was trying to make some purple petunias, so he put some extra code for purple into the flower.
However, Homer came up with a white flower. 
this confused him. Turns out, after a BUNCH of research, it was discovered that there is something called RNAi (which they described as a cop, or a security feature in our cells)
What happened was that something in the cell, RNAI most likely, saw that a code had been added for purple and it "wasn't kosher".
So, the RNAi took out not only all the new code, but all the old standard purple code as well.
In other words, it turned off the whole gene sequence.
The reason this is THE BOMB to these scientists is that there are about 20,000 genes in the human body, and they don't know what most of them do.
With this new RNAi they have discovered, they can now just add a gene code sequence to the cell, and see what happens. Because they add it, whatever it is, it will be turned off.
In this way, they can have the map of the genes, and actually know what they turn on and off.
Helps with deseases, etc.
they tried in on a woman with macular degeneration, and it cured her eyesight.
Mac degen is too many blood vessels in your eye. They gave her a gene, shot into her eye that said to turn on MORE blood vessels.
The RNAi kicked in, and turned everything to do with that part of it OFF.
So, she grew less blood vessels and got her sight back.
I thought it was neater than dog poop so I thought I would share. 
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08-02-2005 01:41 AM
