Not alot of countries have 20% criminal MPs... and the Left has no criminals.

The charges against Modi never stuck...

Where are you in the world, Post?

Dansariki wrote:Where are you in the world, Post?

I believe he's in India along with N&B

Not too sure though.

Yes, he is.

Had to check.
Wonder who Obama's Justice pick will be.
Poor GOP wants to fillibuster whoever it is if they're picked for their empathetic nature.
Too bad they don't have the majority.

Post wrote:Not alot of countries have 20% criminal MPs... and the Left has no criminals.

The charges against Modi never stuck...

Yes, I forgot the Left. And might be the Professional's Party of India, Loksatta & the other parties whom most have not even heard of. The Left are (in some ways) far more democratic than their non-communist counterparts.
People who spoke against Modi (policemen from his own state) were murdered! They said he passed orders saying no one was supposed to take action against rioters. For about 3 days he kept quiet...he could have easily stopped it if he wanted too. Modi was from the RSS anyway.

wrote:Wonder who Obama's Justice pick will be.

Talking about the Chief Justice?

Yep, and it's a mexican.
God help whatever Republican wants to filibuster this one, he'll get crucified.

Dansariki wrote:Yep, and it's a mexican.

...Wow.


Anyway, glowing monkeys.

Why do I get the feeling that it's not for research as they say it is, but for the sheer fun of making animals glow in the dark? :P

They could use them as obstacles in Laser Quest! Those little kids would get freaked out and I might get top 3 for a change.

Luciene wrote:They could use them as obstacles in Laser Quest! Those little kids would get freaked out and I might get top 3 for a change.

Genius.

Apparently you can make glowing anything mind you.

Wow.
I'm proud to say I got that.
Woof, though, gotta say.

Nero wrote:

Luciene wrote:They could use them as obstacles in Laser Quest! Those little kids would get freaked out and I might get top 3 for a change.

Genius.

Apparently you can make glowing anything mind you.

The glowing is usually just proof that a DNA got transformed. It's not easy to transform the DNA of every host cell.

And so exposing my ignorance of the finer details of genetic engineering...
Just how difficult is it to write a virus that would be able to re-write the DNA of the cells?
I have no idea, but transribing something completely new into a cell sounds mightily difficult.
-waits for Sent's epic and expert answer-

I'm no biologist - n&b is much better qualified to answer this than I am. However, it depends what you mean by "re-write". We're getting to the point where, as demonstrated by the various glowing animals, we can insert new genes into an entire animal. Actually re-writing stuff is rather more difficult, however. We're still a long way off being able to fix genetic disorders in an early-stage foetus and further still from being able to fix them in a developed animal (sorry, folks, going to be a while until we can fix your short-sightedness with an injection..).

Dansariki wrote:And so exposing my ignorance of the finer details of genetic engineering...
Just how difficult is it to write a virus that would be able to re-write the DNA of the cells?
I have no idea, but transribing something completely new into a cell sounds mightily difficult.
-waits for Sent's epic and expert answer-

Mightbe I am more qualified than most members here to answer this question, but I have just completed a year (plus a summer course in molecular biology, which is very much needed to answer your question. Basic microbiology doesn't answer it).So, I will just answer your question to the best of my knowledge.

Firstly, viruses usually have RNA not DNA. I have not really understood your question-you are asking if it is possible to introduce a virus into a cell(eukaryotic?) & with the help of the virus change the sequence of the cell, right? If so, first you need to cut a piece of the host DNA(using restriction enzymes which act as molecular scissors) cause if you want it to replicate with a strand of foreign DNA (lets forget about viruses for the time being, cause they have RNA & would never be able to influence the DNA of the host until reverse transcriptase is carried out-for that you need an entirely different mechanism),the size of the DNA ought to be the same for replication to take place (using the host mechanism). If you don't cut a piece & just add the foreign DNA, the DNA size would obviously be bigger & it wouldn't replicate well. Anyway, DNA ligase is used to join the 2 DNA's & the host's polymerase enzyme is used in the replication of this recombinant DNA( that's what such a DNA is called). So when this multiplies (you could use polymerase chain reaction(PCR) for faster results), you get many DNA's with a different sequence. Is that what you mean when you talk about re-writing the DNA)?

Transcription isn't difficult-it happens naturally in every cell during the formation of proteins. Transcription (in layman's term) means converting DNA into RNA. This RNA is,in turn, translated into proteins. Even doing it artificially isn't difficult. Like I said above, all you need to do is to introduce a piece of DNA of your choice into a host cell & make sure the cell gets transformed (glowing is one of the many ways to make sure you got a functional recombinant DNA). The mechanism in the cell does the rest. Doing it in-vitro would be tough, though.

Ok, I wasn't too far off.
From what I know and from your post, what I'm asking is now how far off is creating a virus that could use reverse transcription and RNA-to-DNA (sorry) transcription that could change the sequence of a cell?

As in, a virus that changes a liver cell into a factory, or a glowing (but normal) cell, or something predictably dangerous or stupid (respectively) like that.

nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:

Post wrote:Not alot of countries have 20% criminal MPs... and the Left has no criminals.

The charges against Modi never stuck...

Yes, I forgot the Left. And might be the Professional's Party of India, Loksatta & the other parties whom most have not even heard of. The Left are (in some ways) far more democratic than their non-communist counterparts.
People who spoke against Modi (policemen from his own state) were murdered! They said he passed orders saying no one was supposed to take action against rioters. For about 3 days he kept quiet...he could have easily stopped it if he wanted too. Modi was from the RSS anyway.

wrote:Wonder who Obama's Justice pick will be.

Talking about the Chief Justice?

Didn't know your were a biologist. Biotechnologist?



Are you kidding me? The Lefts organizes itself like some mix of Mafia and Guerilla Cadre. Remember, in the beggining they were an anti state movement to start with, they still believe ideology is more important than practicalities like winning votes.

And Modi, well, one day he might be Prime Minister. Vote congress.