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Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

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Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#31

Post by waserwill »

alex_duf wrote: post #26
thriftwy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approximately like the chance that DNA sequence of a virus, when executed as shell code, will infect your machine.

The reason I ask is that it seems subsequences of DNA are enough to generate proteins, or other molecules. (am I right? if not anyone who knows biology please correct me) It doesn't have to be the whole code that's dangerous, what about a section of it? That still makes it very improbable, but orders of magnitude more than the whole sequence.

The encoding used by these sorts of projects avoids 'ATG' (start site), and possibly the Shine-Dalgarno Sequence (where ribosomes attach), if they do it right. The bacterial DNA can mutate, but the likelihood of that mutation creating a viable protein, let alone a dangerous one, is very low. Honestly, since these stored data aren't coding, the chances of them surviving for long, even in a population of bacteria, is low. Bacteria tend to favor smaller genomes, with higher percentage of coding DNA.

Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#32

Post by rubatuga »

cromwellian wrote: post #18

I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms that insert GIF meme pranks into the human population germ line, eventually triggering the apocalypse. It seems our ability to mess stuff up is growing faster than our ability to defend against bugs. I shudder to think what happens when sloppy engineering practices or "WannaCry" meet biology. Hey, we've encrypted your germ line, an…

Aren’t you just afraid because you don’t really understand how CRISPR works? It’s not a virus or anything, nor is it airborne.

Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#33

Post by dragghnet »

amyjess wrote: post #29
cromwellian wrote: post #18

I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms that insert GIF meme pranks into the human population germ line, eventually triggering the apocalypse. It seems our ability to mess stuff up is growing faster than our ability to defend against bugs. I shudder to think what happens when sloppy engineering practices or "WannaCry" meet biology. Hey, we've encrypted your germ line, an…

Then again, I know a lot of childfree people who would pay good money to have CRISPR sterilize them. I'd say "myself included", but my gender transition will take care of that. Hmm... I wonder if a future version of CRISPR could get my body to produce its own estrogen.

Are you just here to brag about being transgender?

Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#34

Post by positivecomment »

cabalamat wrote: post #23

They should encode some music on it and then watch the RIAA go apeshit trying to track down and kill all the copyright-infringing bacteria.

If someone finds some protected data as controversial as AACS encryption key[2] and creates a "fork" of HIV which contains that information, I'm optimistic that we will get a cure for it in a few years.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure, with this kind of power, if we are quickly approaching a Great Filter[4] or not.

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controvers...

Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#36

Post by rubatuga »

Can we stop with the slippery slope arguments? No, CRISPR will not be used be teenage hackers in the future to infect humans and keep them hostage. CRISPR can’t be “spread” or “transmitted” and is a local technique to introduce DNA snippets into the main genome of the organism. And to anyone who thinks that CRISPR could be potentially used to infect humans, this technology is nothing new: viruses have already had DNA editing machinery for millennia, search up retroviruses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrovirus

Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#37

Post by searine »

cromwellian wrote: post #18

I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms that insert GIF meme pranks into the human population germ line, eventually triggering the apocalypse. It seems our ability to mess stuff up is growing faster than our ability to defend against bugs. I shudder to think what happens when sloppy engineering practices or "WannaCry" meet biology. Hey, we've encrypted your germ line, an…

>I gloriously await from teenage hackers 10 years from now release CRISPR viruses/worms

You're going to be waiting awhile.

The hard part about biology is that it often doesn't work. To get things working even semi-reliably you need tens of thousands of dollars of sensitive equipment and reagents. Equipment and reagents that would catch the attention of interested authorities if you bought it as an independent.

Computer viruses are the result of a tractable ecosystem and a low cost to participation. Biology is largely untractable, with a tremendous cost of entry.

Yes, CRISPR helps us insert DNA, but it doesn't change all the sensitive steps up to the point of transformation. Even then, CRISPR is limited to the cells being treated.

A custom biological virus is what you are imagining, with the ability to both insert DNA/RNA and with a capsule that protect it during transmission. Unfortunately we are likely centuries away from being able to code a completely custom life form, and even then, the cost and training needed to create such life forms will be cost prohibitive, leaving only corporations and governments the ability to do so.

Re: Scientists have inserted a GIF of a horse into living bacteria

#40

Post by searine »

tomswartz07 wrote: post #13

Anyone have any info on the amount of data that was encoded? It looks like it was a low resolution image with 5 frames, so I expect it to be about 1 Kb, max?

Nature paper say 2.5 kilobytes of data, and I guessimate a few Kilobases of sequence.
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