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New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

sciencealert.com

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Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#51

Post by sbmassey »

portent wrote: post #50
jcoffland wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have no idea what happens in our own code That's an overstatement. Sure code can be very complex but we actually can see exactly what's going on whenever we really want to. It's just that we cannot see what's going on with all the code all the time.

code can be very simple, and we don't always know what it will do. Simple example: can you tell me if this snippet of (python) code will ever terminate or not? x=0.5 while x 0.7: x=3.59*x*(1-x) print x ... and what if the 3.59 was replaced by a different number - maybe 3.60 ? or 3.84 ?

It will eventually terminate, if only because the machine it is running on will eventually be shut down.

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#52

Post by colordrops »

_yosefk wrote: post #40
_throwaway1843 wrote: post #8

Star Trek depicted one of the scarier applications of such a technology: There, The Jem'Hadaar are a genetically engineered race of warriors controlled by the Dominion, who exert power over them by being the sole provider of a substance (Ketracel-White) that they need in order to survive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Star_Trek) http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ketracel-white If my reading of the paper is…

It's good as long self-termination is a nice-to-have feature. If you REALLY want them to self-terminate but you found out that they mutated and can now synthesize X & Y, you're in trouble. Genetically modified organisms are a bit scary, but genetically modified organisms that replicate autonomously are more than a bit scary. As programmers - a profession that managed to spread Shellshock, the dumbest imaginable backd…

No, GMOs are inherently safe and you are anti-science /s

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#53

Post by portent »

sbmassey wrote: post #51
portent wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

code can be very simple, and we don't always know what it will do. Simple example: can you tell me if this snippet of (python) code will ever terminate or not? x=0.5 while x 0.7: x=3.59*x*(1-x) print x ... and what if the 3.59 was replaced by a different number - maybe 3.60 ? or 3.84 ?

It will eventually terminate, if only because the machine it is running on will eventually be shut down.

OK, well we can always say that the heat-death of the universe renders all problems irrelevent, but it's a bit of a cheat in my opinion.

The original poster seems to imply that knowing the code means that you can know the behaviour of the system; I do not think that is the case, and my simple (chaotic) example tries to demonstrate this.

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#54

Post by joshjje »

portent wrote: post #53
sbmassey wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will eventually terminate, if only because the machine it is running on will eventually be shut down.

OK, well we can always say that the heat-death of the universe renders all problems irrelevent, but it's a bit of a cheat in my opinion. The original poster seems to imply that knowing the code means that you can know the behaviour of the system; I do not think that is the case, and my simple (chaotic) example tries to demonstrate this.

If you have the compiled assembly obviously you can say exactly what will happen. I agree with your meaning somewhat though that more often than not many people have no clue, especially with large systems. Its not as bad as your statement though..

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#55

Post by lorenzhs »

rmah wrote: post #35
singularity2001 wrote: post #3

"create organisms with wholly unnatural attributes and traits not found elsewhere in nature" I'd argue that this shouldn't add anything categorically new, just like switching from 32 to 64 bit programs doesn't change the world.

This is less like 32bit to 64bit and more like moving from binary to trinary logic.

Well binary and ternary number systems can express the same numbers, they just do it in a different way. I don't think there's a good computer analogy here.

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#56

Post by sbmassey »

portent wrote: post #53
sbmassey wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will eventually terminate, if only because the machine it is running on will eventually be shut down.

OK, well we can always say that the heat-death of the universe renders all problems irrelevent, but it's a bit of a cheat in my opinion. The original poster seems to imply that knowing the code means that you can know the behaviour of the system; I do not think that is the case, and my simple (chaotic) example tries to demonstrate this.

Well indeed, as per Turing on the Entscheidungsproblem one cannot know what some abstract bit of code does without running it, but one can sometimes put limits on its behaviour - your snippet will never do anything but print out numbers, for example, or something running under seccomp might be prevented from making certain syscalls.

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#59

Post by SilasX »

_yosefk wrote: post #40
_throwaway1843 wrote: post #8

Star Trek depicted one of the scarier applications of such a technology: There, The Jem'Hadaar are a genetically engineered race of warriors controlled by the Dominion, who exert power over them by being the sole provider of a substance (Ketracel-White) that they need in order to survive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Star_Trek) http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ketracel-white If my reading of the paper is…

It's good as long self-termination is a nice-to-have feature. If you REALLY want them to self-terminate but you found out that they mutated and can now synthesize X & Y, you're in trouble. Genetically modified organisms are a bit scary, but genetically modified organisms that replicate autonomously are more than a bit scary. As programmers - a profession that managed to spread Shellshock, the dumbest imaginable backd…

>It's good as long self-termination is a nice-to-have feature. If you REALLY want them to self-terminate but you found out that they mutated and can now synthesize X & Y, you're in trouble.

Also, if they get powerful enough that they can take over your synthesis facility...

Re: New organisms have been formed using the first ever 6-letter genetic code

#60

Post by mvm »

ambrop7 wrote: post #26

Can the organism replicate the XY pairs during DNA replication (and pass it on to divided cells)? I haven't seen that mentioned, only that it "holds onto it for its entire lifespan" which is not clear to me. There's also nothing about the interaction of these pairs with existing mechanisms, like transcription (DNA-->RNA) and translation (RNA-->protein). Could the new new pair increase the space of aminoacids from whi…

Artificial base pairs are replicated, it is seen from fig.5 in original article, with nearly 100% retention
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