Via Science Daily;
“All along, we presumed that the code or vocabulary used by organisms was universal, applying to all branches of the tree of life, with vanishingly few exceptions,” said DOE JGI Director Eddy Rubin, and senior author on the Science paper. “We have now confirmed that this just isn’t so. There is a significant portion of life that uses different vocabularies where the same word means different things in different organisms.”
[…]
Phage infect bacteria, injecting their DNA into the cell and exploiting the translational machinery of the cell to create more of themselves, to the point when the bacterial cell explodes, releasing more progeny phage particles to spread to neighboring bacteria and run amok.
“To make this all happen, the established dogma was that phage needed to employ the exact genetic code that the host cell uses, otherwise, whatever DNA they inject wouldn’t be properly translated,” Rubin said. “But we observed phage with codon vocabularies that did not match any we found in their bacterial hosts. We scratched our heads at this result, because we wondered about what was up with the host. The dogma tells us that the phage to need to share the same code as the host, but we saw no Amber in bacteria. So what were these phage doing?”
The punch line, Rubin said, is that the dogma is wrong.
I really can’t stand articles that refer to established scientific ideas as “dogma”, even if there is a good chance the ideas will be overturned.
Behind such usage is the suggestion by the writer that he or she is a free thinker unbound by convention, while others are hidebound reactionaries defending the status quo.
Sadly, rabbit, that’s all too often exactly the case. The history of the discovery that ulcers were caused by bacteria is instructive.
Dogma??? Those are “theories” or “rules” constructed by man to control man. They have dick all to do with science. Then again,neither does AGW “science”.
There is a tendency among some researchers, young researchers in particular, to think that because they have improved upon some field that they must be a little smarter or open minded than those who came before.
It’s an illusion, of course. Science advances without one generation being smarter than the next, and ideas that are touted as “overturning the dogma” became the dogma which is overturned next.
For that reason it’s best to show respect towards previous work, even as you prove that work to be flawed.
Dog ma is a bitch…
And thinking about this article….how the he77 did they think cancer cells invaded and took over normal cells? Creating their own enviroment,their own blood supplies,their own defences against the immune system. Hypnotism?
“…Hypnotism?”
Why not hypnotism? That seems to be how the “science” on AGW works.
Sounds like Rubin thinks his Karma ran over the dogma…
Just couldn’t resist it…I’m weak….
Paging the thermodynamics crowd.
All cell evolution physicists front and center please.
2 Origins????!!!!!
…or is this another CERN episode?
Science is never settled.
Scientism, on the other hand…
I have long thought that DNA would some day mean the death of Evolution.
What possible non-intelligent mechanism/system can possibly account for the development of the language? Hint: none. And just as intelligence is a necessary to understand the meaning of language, so it is necessary to create language. But more than one language in DNA!! Will wonders never cease. Evolution’s problems are now exponentially more difficult.
It may take decades but some day DNA will lead to the collapse of the Evolutionary house of cards.
I’ll bet yu read that in the bible, didn’t cha
hate to hurt your feelings but evolution is here to stay, tho it may need some tweeking
JRW….disregarding NME666…google iRNA and double loop RNA.
The question I asked about an explanation for the development of the language of DNA is a reasonable, scientific question. Where is your reasonable, scientific answer NME666? Surely those who wrap themselves as defenders of science need to do better than reply with a cheap shot. Couldn’t you at least refer us to an Evolutionist who has provided a decent answer?
Its computational warfare at the bacterial level. The phages are doing a pure information hack-attack on the bacteral cell machinery, p0wning the operating system and hijacking the whole cell to build more phages. They don’t have to make their own reproductive systems, they STEAL one from a handy bacteria.
Pure example of a evolutionary computing algorithm made flesh, as it were. This is SO cool. ~:) My inner geek is doing a little dance here.
Too bad ET doesn’t comment anymore, I’d love to hear her take.
JRW
“I have long thought that DNA would some day mean the death of Evolution”
try understanding your own postings
DNA is not the be-all/end-all of evolution, it is only one small aspect of it, and I’m not stating that DNA/RNA is even remotely understood. But then for evolution to be a fact understanding then is not critical. Even “information” has an evolutionary process built in.
PPL like justhinkin let their dogma over ride an reasoning their may have
Anyone remember when humans had 48 chromosomes?