99 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2024
    1. The DNA sequencing analysis of the KCNQ1 gene disclosed a homozygous c.728G > A (p.Arg243His) missense mutation in case1.

      Out of 3 patients one of the patient was identified with KCNQ1 RYR2 and NKX2 genes.

  2. Oct 2023
    1. sRNAs that repress transcription have been engineered to create orthogonal and composable regulators that can be used to construct RNA-only transcriptional networks
  3. Sep 2023
    1. we are fundamentally a cultural species. 00:09:51 Culture is our life support system. Our cumulative culture allows us to cushion ourselves against the harsh realities of the environment and to reshape the environment.
      • for: cultural evolution, cultural evolution - Bruce Hood, cumulative cultural evolution, CCE, gene-culture coevolution

      • paraphrase

        • Our evolving technology allowed us to expand into new territories and manipulate the environment in ways that gave us an edge.
        • Places like this remind me about how harsh nature can be.
        • We're so used to living in air conditioning, and having the comfort of the modern world, but when you go out into nature and experience it first hand, you're reminded very powerfully about how weak we are as an animal.
        • And this is because we are fundamentally a cultural species.
        • Culture is our life support system.
        • Our cumulative culture allows us to
          • cushion ourselves against the harsh realities of the environment and to
          • reshape the environment.
  4. Aug 2023
    1. About ten years ago, a massive breakthrough happened in genomic research technology. A method appeared which is called NGS, next generation sequencing, and this method significantly cuts time and costs of any genomic research. For example, have you ever heard about the Human Genome Project? It was quite a popular topic for science fiction some time ago. 00:03:10 This project launched in 1990 with the goal to decrypt all genomic information in a human organism. At that time, with the technology of the time, it took ten years and three billion dollars to reach the goals of this project. With NGS, all of that can be done in just one day at the cost of 15,000 dollars.
      • for: progress trap, cumulative cultural evolution, gene-culture co-evolution, speed of cultural evolution, human genome project
      • paraphrase
        • the human genome project took 10 years and cost 3 billion dollars
        • with NGS technology, 10 years later, the same job takes 1 day and costs $15,000 dollars
    1. In AET, this process results in a species that is prone to niche construction and ecosystem engineering, and the scale of these processes continues to increase as the population rises. This increasing scale coupled with human propensity for niche construction leads to human unsustainability
      • for: for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power, gene culture coevolution
      • key finding
        • paraphrase
          • In AET,
            • multi-level selection acting on the genome and
            • occurring in concert with selective and non-selective mechanisms acting on culture and technology
          • results in a species that is prone to
            • niche construction and
            • ecosystem engineering,
          • and the scale of these processes continues to increase as the population rises.
          • This increasing scale
            • coupled with human propensity for niche construction
          • leads to human unsustainability
    2. To Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection from the individual level to the group level. Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt driven by the imperative to produce surplus
      • for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power
      • paraphrase
        • to Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection
          • from the individual level
          • to the group level.
        • Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt
          • driven by the imperative to produce surplus
      • for: gene culture coevolution, carrying capacity, unsustainability, overshoot, cultural evolution, progress trap

      • Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

      • Author: Brian F. Snyder

      • Abstract

      • Summary
      • Paraphrase
        • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
        • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
          • climate change,
          • biodiversity loss,
          • population growth
        • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
        • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
          • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
        • Here, we integrate this theory with
          • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
        • and propose a model linking
          • energy extraction from the environment with
          • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
        • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
        • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
          • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
          • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
        • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
        • in all species,
        • but in humans, they are also determined by
          • technology and
          • culture.
        • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
          • the ability of an individual or social group
        • to increase its carrying capacity,
        • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
        • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
          • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.
  5. Jun 2023
    1. Computational studies that analyzed HGT events among bacterial genomes revealed that HGT frequency positively and strongly correlates with the similarity of tRNA pools between donors and acceptors
  6. Mar 2023
    1. the best known example of this type of research concerns the co-evolution of pastoralism and lactose tolerance [30]. In rough terms, the basic hypothesis—which is widely accepted and well confirmed—is that the adoption of dairying set up a modified niche in which the ability to digest lactose into adulthood was at an advantage.

      Best known example of gene-culture coevolution - co-evolution of pastoralism and lactose intolerance - the adoption of dairying set up a modified niche - in which the ability to digest lactose into adulthood was an advantage. - ancestors who were lactose tolerant could take advantage of a new source of calories. - Hence it is the learned acquisition of dairying which explains the natural selection of genes favoring lactase persistence, - the continued production of the enzyme lactase beyond weaning - Dual inheritance theory (Gene-culture coevolution) typically uses this example to explain - Dairying is inherited via a cultural channel - lactase persistence is inherited via a genetic channel - Recent supporters of this also make recent claims that it is not possible to distinguish between - what is biological from what is cultural

    1. It has been suggested that - the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI).

      there is disagreement about - how to apply the ETI framework to our species - and whether culture is implicated - as either cause or consequence.

      Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) i- s - also poorly understood.

      argued that - culture steers human evolution,

      Others proposed - genes hold culture on a leash.

      After review of the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans - emerge a set of common themes. - First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance - and is probably driving human evolution. - The evolutionary impact of culture occurs - mainly through culturally organized groups, - which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. - Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, - increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. -Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by - an evolutionary transition in inheritance - from genes to culture - which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Research on GCC should focus on the possibility of - an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

    1. So many of the prewar musicians that I admired, obscure and famous, all had experience playing in the medicine shows. This included black songsters like Frank Stokes and Pink Anderson, as well as seminal country artists like Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry. Even Hank Williams played the medicine shows.
    1. Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
      • Title: Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
      • Author: Herbert Gintis

      //Abstract - Summary - Human characteristics are the product of gene–culture coevolution, - which is an evolutionary dynamic involving the interaction of genes and culture - over long time periods. - Gene–culture coevolution is a special case of niche construction. - Gene–culture coevolution is responsible for: - human other-regarding preferences, - a taste for fairness, - the capacity to empathize and - salience of morality and character virtues.

      • Title: Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus
      • Author:
        • Jeremy Kendal
        • Jamshid J. Tehrani
        • John Oding-Smee
      • Abstract
        • summary
        • Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution,
      • reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection.
        • It works by adding ecological inheritance,
        • comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction,
        • to genetic inheritance in evolution.
        • Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species.
        • Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent
        • because it includes the social transmission and inheritance
        • of cultural knowledge, and material culture.
        • Human genetic inheritance
        • in combination with human cultural inheritance
        • thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution,
        • and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution.
        • Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences.
        • We elaborate on these processes,
        • and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.
  7. Dec 2022
    1. forced on the population

      at least in the US, no one is being forced to get a vaccine. Not only that, but there's no evidence anyone's even considered it: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/forced-vaccines-covid-19/

      Maybe they're talking about another population?

    1. https://www.dalekeiger.net/untitled/

      Dale Keiger is tap dancing his way into a definition for the underlying traits for encouraging and expanding on creativity. There's definitely something here worth pursuing further and giving a specific name to.

      Some it is very akin to the ideas behind combinatorial creativity of working (dancing in Kelly's case) on the mundane with precision and drive and perhaps at least a soupçon of obsessiveness, but openness to the new.

      How can we sharpen this set of ideas to settle on the right list of "ingredients"? Is there a way to hone in on this sort of creation of flow within a certain creative area while simultaneously not getting bored? Is it the small string of creative breakthroughs in the process of practice which open up new avenues and help create the flow to prevent boredom?

      How might relate to Anders Ericsson's work on on deliberate practice or plateau principle coming into play, particularly to prevent boredom to encourage one to continue on with their practice?

      I haven't put my finger on it but there were hints in it from a Yo-Yo Ma ad for Masterclass I saw the other day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbjgHkj-syM)..

    1. Diagram of immunoprecipitation (IP) using either pre-immobilized or free antibodies.

      Immunoprecipitation is a technique for the isolation of protein or a complex (protein-protein interactions) Sample is combined with a specific antibody for the epitope of interest. The antibody-protein complex is removed and analysed.

      1. Molecules from biological sample (lysed) +incubated with antibodies (free or mounted onto support (like agarose bead, magnetic bead))
      2. protein A or G coupled beads added.
      3. Centrifuged
      4. Results in Beads with protein A/G bound to antibody-POI complex.
      5. Well separated in this way, differentially based on sedimentation coefficient.

      Co-immunoprecipitation (can isolate one type of protein in its complex)

      Isolate POI(s) Good with low conc. of POI Protein interactions Unknown proteins Determine if protein is actually being expressed in a given tissue.

      Western blot is carried out to analyse the output.

      Vary salt and detergent levels to preserve or destroy protein interactions.

  8. Nov 2022
    1. Primers to target the DXS gene24 (one copy per genome) and the ampicillin resistance gene on the plasmid were created using the Primer3Plus design tool
  9. Oct 2022
    1. this course considers at the very end the question of the essence of thereligion: Through all this change, does anything remain constant?

      Religion co-evolves with the people, places, and times in which it exists. Much like human genes, it works at the level of the individual, the local group, the larger groups and communities (of both the religion itself as well as the polities around it), and when applicable at the scale of all people on the planet.

      The Selfish Religion: How far might we take this religion/gene analogy with respect to Richard Dawkins' thesis (1976). Does religion act more like a gene that is part of the particular person or is it more like a virus which inserts itself? The latter may be closer as one can pick and choose a religion rather than it being a core part of their genetic identity.

      (highlight: anchor only)

  10. Sep 2022
    1. culture is gradually replacing genetics as the primary human system of inheritance. This hypothesis helps clarify the human ETI.

      !- conclusion : GCC - very important finding - nobody knows the implications of such a profound shift - it means we are profoundly dependent on culture, on artificial human-created adaptations for our survival !- in other words : GCC - we no longer genetically evolve to adapt, but rather cognitive create solutions to adapt!

    2. if cultural evolution is sufficiently rapid, it may act to pre-empt and slow genetic evolution. That is, in solving adaptive challenges before genetic evolution takes place, cultural inheritance may reduce the opportunity for natural selection on genes and weaken the adaptive value of information stored in genetic inheritance in the long term. This process is the opposite of genetic assimilation, in which a plastic trait becomes genetically encoded. We call this mode of GCC cultural pre-emption.

      !- Question : Genetic Evolution

      Does this mean that our predominantly cultural evolution threatens to freeze our genetic evolution? This is possible, since genetic evolution takes place on time scales that are orders of magnitudes larger than cultural evolution Unless theoretically proposed, it may have escaped detection for a long time

    3. human long-term GCC is characterized by an evolutionary transition in inheritance (from genes to culture) which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group).

      !- for : Cultural Evolution - the findings of this paper point to culture is displacing genetic adaptive potential as the main driver of evolution. This is a very profound finding!

  11. Aug 2022
  12. Jul 2022
    1. mutations in the α-sarcoglycan gene (SGCA)

      PMID: 30989758

      Gene: SGCA

      HGNCID: 10805

      Case: 8 year old boy, Chinese.

      DiseaseAssertion: LGMD

      FamilyInfo: Family members denied relevant family history

      CasePresentingHPOs: HP:0006785, HP:0003551, HP:0003391, HP:0003560

      MotorAchievement: Noticed around 7 years old that he had trouble climbing stairs and standing up when crouching and had slower activity than other peers.

      CreatineKinase: Creatine kinase CK 15550U/L, MB fraction 276 U/L

      CasePreviousTesting:430 genes associated with muscular dystrophy were captured with a liquid catch kit.

      GenotypingMethod: NGS

      PreviouslyPublished: NA

      SupplementalData: NA

      Variant: NM_000023c.218 C>T

      ClinVarID: Unregistered varient

      CAID: Unregistered varient

      gnomAD: https://gnomad.broadinstitute.org/variant/17-48245003-C-T?dataset=gnomad_r2_1

      "0.000 Allele Frequency - East Asian

    1. 08:58 - Migrant gene DRD4-7R* Allele and correlation with the pursuit of novelty

      DRD4-7R is the specific gene that Peter implicates in migrants who are adventurous enough to come to America. This is associated with the "can do" perspective that has propelled America into a world leader but also drives America reflexively into the future...on autopilot.

    1. In just a decade, CRISPR has become one of the most celebrated inventions in modern biology. It is swiftly changing how medical researchers study diseases: Cancer biologists are using the method to discover hidden vulnerabilities of tumor cells. Doctors are using CRISPR to edit genes that cause hereditary diseases.
  13. May 2022
    1. DICER1 syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that predisposes individuals to multiple cancer types.

      GeneName: DICER1 PMID: 29762508 HGNCID: N/A Inheritance Pattern: Autosomal dominant Disease Entity: Cancer Mutation: Germline Zygosity: Heterozygosity Variant: Unregistered Family Information: 12% of children with pleuropulmonary blastomas have cystic nephromas Case: 11 year old patient with Hodgkin lymphoma with DICER1 mutation in 2016.

    1. DICER1 syndrome is a rare genetic condition predisposing to hereditary cancer and caused by variants in the DICER1

      GeneName: DICER1 PMCID: PMC7859642 HGNCID: Unavailable Inheritance Pattern: Autosomal dominant. Disease Entity: Familial pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB), cervix embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, multinodular goiter, nasal chondromesenchymal hemartoma, Ciliary body medulloepithelioma, Sertoli-Leydig Cell Tumor (SLCT), differentiated thyroid carcinoma, pituitary blastoma, pineoblastoma, cystic nephroma, Wilm's tumor and sarcomas of different sites including, amongst others, the uterine cervix, kidney and brain. Mutation: Germline Zygosity: Heterozygose Variant: No ClinVarID present. Family Information: No family outline Case: No specified information of patients included. CasePresentingHPO's: n/a CasePrevious Testing: n/a gnomAD: n/a Mutation Type: nonsense, frameshift, or splice affected.

    1. Pathogenic germline variants in DICER1 underlie an autosomal dominant, pleiotropic tumor-predisposition disorder.

      gene name: DICER 1 PMID (PubMed ID): 33570641 HGNCID: n/a Inheritance Pattern: autosomal dominant Disease Entity: benign and malignant tumor mutation Mutation: somatic Zygosity: heterozygous Variant: n/a Family Information: n/a Case: people of all sexes, ages, ethnicities and races participated CasePresentingHPOs: individuals with DICER1-associated tumors or pathogenic germline DICER1 variants were recruited to participate CasePreviousTesting: n/a gnomAD: n/a

  14. Apr 2022
    1. DICER1 syndrome is an autosomal-dominant, pleiotropic tumor-predisposition disorder

      Gene Name:DICER1 PMID: 30715996 HGNCID: Not on document Inheritance Pattern: Autosomal Dominant Disease Entity: Pleiotropic Tumor-Predisposition Disorder Mutation: Pathogenic Germline Variants Zygosity: Not in document Variant: Not in document Family Information: An individual was found who had family members who were also affected by this mutation. Because of this, those family members were also chosen to participate in this study. Mutation Type: Missense Case: The study was done on more than one individual. Roughly more than half of the individuals were female

    1. DICER1 syndrome is a rare genetic condition predisposing to hereditary cancer and caused by variants in the DICER1 gene.

      Gene Name: DICER1 PMID:33552988 HGNCID: Unavailable Inheritance Pattern:Autosomal Dominant Disease Entity: familial pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB),cystic nephroma, ovarian Sertoli-Leydig cell tumor (SLCT), multinodular goiter, cervix embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, Wilms’ tumor, nasal chondromesenchymal hamartoma, ciliary body medulloepithelioma, differentiated thyroid carcinoma, pituitary blastoma, pineoblastoma, and sarcomas of different sites. Mutation: Nonsense, Frameshift<br /> Zygosity: Heterosygosity Variant:No ClinVar ID present Family Information:no diseases mentioned in family Case: no specified case in this article gnomAD: n/a Mutation type: Nonsense. frameshift

    2. DICER1 syndrome is a cancer-predisposing disorder caused by pathogenic variants in the DICER1 gene

      Gene: DICER1 PMCID: PMC7859642 PMID: 33552988 HGNCID: Unavailable Inheritance Pattern: Autosomal Dominant Disease Entity: familial pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB),cystic nephroma, ovarian Sertoli-Leydig cell tumor (SLCT), multinodular goiter, cervix embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, Wilms’ tumor, nasal chondromesenchymal hamartoma, ciliary body medulloepithelioma, differentiated thyroid carcinoma, pituitary blastoma, pineoblastoma, and sarcomas of different sites. Mutation: Germline Zygosity: Heterozygosity most common Variant: ClinVarID not available Family Information: No mention of disease within family Case: No case specified GnomAD: N/A Mutation Type: Nonsense or Frameshift

    1. DICER1 syndrome (OMIM 606241, 601200)

      Gene Name: OMIN PMID: 34599283 Autosomal Dominant Gynandroblastoma cERMS Pediatric Paratesticular Sarcomas nephrolithiasis or nephrocalcinonsis Cystic Nephroma Anaplastic Sarcoma of Kidney Wilms tumor Cystic Hepatic Neoplasm Hamartomatous polyps

      Germline mutation heterozygosity Multiple Gene Variants There is usually a family history or a carrier for the mutation it rarely occurs out of nowhere.

    1. DICER1 syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that predisposes individuals to multiple cancer types.

      GeneName = DICER1 PMID = 29762508 HGNCID = Can't find Inheritance pattern = Autosomal dominant Disease entity = cancer, multinodular goiter, pleuropulmonary blastoma, cystic nephroma, ovarian Sertoli-Leydig cell tumor Mutation = germline OR somatic Zygosity = causes loss of heterozygosity Variant = unregistered Family = those with the mutation almost always passed it on

    1. GenExpDB is the world’s largest repository for E. coli gene expression data. This site is a widely used public resource for gene expression analysis.
  15. Mar 2022
    1. Kerr, P. J., Cattadori, I. M., Liu, J., Sim, D. G., Dodds, J. W., Brooks, J. W., Kennett, M. J., Holmes, E. C., & Read, A. F. (2017). Next step in the ongoing arms race between myxoma virus and wild rabbits in Australia is a novel disease phenotype. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(35), 9397–9402. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710336114

  16. Feb 2022
  17. Jan 2022
    1. The scientific consensus has shifted so much that Richard Dawkins, in the 30th-anniversary edition of “The Selfish Gene,” wrote that he could just as accurately have called his book “The Cooperative Gene.” Perhaps decades of our economic and political lives would have been much less harmful if he had.

      I do like the more positive framing of "The Cooperative Gene."

  18. Dec 2021
  19. Nov 2021
    1. So to sum things up what caused life's major evolutionary transitions the answer is cooperation major transitions begin when a group of organisms join forces to better survive and reproduce if cooperation continues long enough a new super organism may Emerge one that can then go [on] to reproduce and evolve as a whole and 00:07:42 The pathway that led [to] animals along with humankind [at] least three major transitions have been identified resulting in four layers of Life within your own body

      Within this human body, we embed 4 different stages of Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET).

      Our human body is the product of billions of years of evolution, embodying various outputs from each major stage of a Major Evolutionary Transition (MET). We are a multi-cellular being, a colony. Yet,at the same time, we have living elements that at one time in history, were independent living beings which were NOT part of a multi-cellular colony!

      In the deep history of the evolution of the human body, genes, mitochondria, eukaryotes were all once autonomous living entities, each a biological self with its own boundary separating inner from outer. Virus's helped to catalyze their mutualism over deep time.

      Now, over billions of years of evolution, they are all integrated together by the extra-cellular matrix and laminin protein into our multi-cellular human body, replicating as one super, super, super organism.

      Finally, inscribed language has allowed us to undergo another kind of transition, a major system transition (MST) where human beings now dominate the entire biosphere, for better and for worse.

    1. Professional musicians, concert pianists get to know this instrument deeply, intimately. And through it, they're able to create with sound in a way that just dazzles us, and challenges us, and deepens us. But if you were to look into the mind of a concert pianist, and you used all the modern ways of imaging it, an interesting thing that you would see 00:11:27 is how much of their brain is actually dedicated to this instrument. The ability to coordinate ten fingers. The ability to work the pedal. The feeling of the sound. The understanding of music theory. All these things are represented as different patterns and structures in the brain. And now that you have that thought in your mind, recognize that this beautiful pattern and structure of thought in the brain 00:11:52 was not possible even just a couple hundred years ago. Because the piano was not invented until the year 1700. This beautiful pattern of thought in the brain didn't exist 5,000 years ago. And in this way, the skill of the piano, the relationship to the piano, the beauty that comes from it was not a thinkable thought until very, very recently in human history. 00:12:17 And the invention of the piano itself was not an independent thought. It required a depth of mechanical engineering. It required the history of stringed instruments. It required so many patterns and structures of thought that led to the possibility of its invention and then the possibility of the mastery of its play. And it leads me to a concept I'd like to share with you guys, which I call "The Palette of Being." 00:12:44 Because all of us are born into this life having available to us the experiences of humanity that has come so far. We typically are only able to paint with the patterns of thoughts and the ways of being that existed before. So if the piano and the way of playing it is a way of being, this is a way of being that didn't exist for people 5,000 years ago. 00:13:10 It was a color in the Palette of Being that you couldn't paint with. Nowadays if you are born, you can actually learn the skill; you can learn to be a computer scientist, another color that was not available just a couple hundred years ago. And our lives are really beautiful for the following reason. We're born into this life. We have the ability to go make this unique painting with the colors of being that are around us at the point of our birth. 00:13:36 But in the process of life, we also have the unique opportunity to create a new color. And that might come from the invention of a new thing. A self-driving car. A piano. A computer. It might come from the way that you express yourself as a human being. It might come from a piece of artwork that you create. Each one of these ways of being, these things that we put out into the world 00:14:01 through the creative process of mixing together all the other things that existed at the point that we were born, allow us to expand the Palette of Being for all of society after us. And this leads me to a very simple way to go frame everything that we've talked about today. Because I think a lot of us understand that we exist in this kind of the marvelous universe, 00:14:30 but we think about this universe as we're this tiny, unimportant thing, there's this massive physical universe, and inside of it, there's the biosphere, and inside of that, that's society, and inside of us, we're just one person out of seven billion people, and how can we matter? And we think about this as like a container relationship, where all the goodness comes from the outside to the inside, and there's nothing really special about us. 00:14:56 But the Palette of Being says the opposite. It says that the way that we are in our lives, the way that we affect our friends and our family, begin to change the way that they are able to paint in the future, begins to change the way that communities then affect society, the way that society could then affect its relationship to the biosphere, and the way that the biosphere could then affect the physical planet 00:15:21 and the universe itself. And if it's a possible thing for cyanobacteria to completely transform the physical environment of our planet, it is absolutely a possible thing for us to do the same thing. And it leads to a really important question for the way that we're going to do that, the manner in which we're going to do that. Because we've been given this amazing gift of consciousness.

      The Palette of Being is a very useful idea that is related to Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE) and autopoiesis. From CCE, humans are able to pass on new ideas from one generation to the next, made possible by the tool of inscribed language.

      Peter Nonacs group at UCLA as well as Stuart West at Oxford research Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET) West elucidates that modern hominids integrate the remnants of four major stages of MET that have occurred over deep time. Amanda Robins, a researcher in Nonacs group posits the idea that our species of modern hominids are undergoing a Major Systems Transition (MST), due specifically to our development of inscribed language.

      CCE emerges new technologies that shape our human environments in time frames far faster than biological evolutionary timeframes. New human experiences are created which have never been exposed to human brains before, which feedback to affect our biological evolution as well in the process of gene-culture coevolution (GCC), also known as Dual Inheritance theory. In this way, CCE and GCC are entangled. "Gene–culture coevolution is the application of niche-construction reasoning to the human species, recognizing that both genes and culture are subject to similar dynamics, and human society is a cultural construction that provides the environment for fitness-enhancing genetic changes in individuals. The resulting social system is a complex dynamic nonlinear system. " (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048999/)

      This metaphor of experiences constituting different colors on a Palette of Being is a powerful one that can contextualize human experiences from a deep time framework. One could argue that language usage automatically forces us into an anthropomorphic lens, for sophisticated language usage at the level of humans appears to be unique amongst our species. Within that constraint, the Palette of Being still provides us with a less myopic, less immediate and arguably less anthropomorphic view of human experience. It is philosophically problematic, however, in the sense that we can speculate about nonhuman modalities of being but never truly experience them. Philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote his classic paper "What it's like to be a bat" to illustrate this problem of experiencing the other. (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf)

      We can also leverage the Palette of Being in education. Deep Humanity (DH) BEing Journeys are a new kind of experiential, participatory contemplative practice and teaching tool designed to deepen our appreciation of what it is to be human. The polycrisis of the Anthropocene, especially the self-induced climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic have precipitated the erosion of stable social norms and reference frames, inducing another crisis, a meaning crisis. In this context, a re-education of embodied philosophy is seen as urgent to make sense of a radically shifting human reality.

      Different human experiences presented as different colors of the Palette of Being situate our crisis in a larger context. One important Deep Humanity BEing journey that can help contextualize and make sense of our experiences is language. Once upon a time, language did not exist. As it gradually emerged, this color came to be added to our Palette of Being, and shaped the normative experiences of humanity in profound ways. It is the case that such profound shifts, lost over deep time come to be taken for granted by modern conspecifics. When such particular colors of the Palette of Being are not situated in deep time, and crisis ensues, that loss of contextualizing and situatedness can be quite disruptive, de-centering, confusing and alienating.

      Being aware of the colors in the Palette can help us shed light on the amazing aspects that culture has invisibly transmitted to us, helping us not take them for granted, and re-establish a sense of awe about our lives as human beings.

  20. Oct 2021
    1. Magusali, N., Graham, A. C., Piers, T. M., Panichnantakul, P., Yaman, U., Shoai, M., Reynolds, R. H., Botia, J. A., Brookes, K. J., Guetta-Baranes, T., Bellou, E., Bayram, S., Sokolova, D., Ryten, M., Sala Frigerio, C., Escott-Price, V., Morgan, K., Pocock, J. M., Hardy, J., & Salih, D. A. (2021). A genetic link between risk for Alzheimer’s disease and severe COVID-19 outcomes via the OAS1 gene. Brain, awab337. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awab337

    1. Wickenhagen, A., Sugrue, E., Lytras, S., Kuchi, S., Noerenberg, M., Turnbull, M. L., Loney, C., Herder, V., Allan, J., Jarmson, I., Cameron-Ruiz, N., Varjak, M., Pinto, R. M., Lee, J. Y., Iselin, L., Palmalux, N., Stewart, D. G., Swingler, S., Greenwood, E. J. D., … Wilson, S. J. (n.d.). A prenylated dsRNA sensor protects against severe COVID-19. Science, 0(0), eabj3624. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj3624

  21. Jun 2021
  22. May 2021
    1. The basal level of T7-dependent tran-scription in this strain can be reduced by constitutive produc-tion of T7 lyzozyme, a natural inhibitor of T7 RNAP, usingplasmids pLysS and pLysE

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    Annotators

  23. Apr 2021
    1. Lee, L. Y., Rozmanowski, S., Pang, M., Charlett, A., Anderson, C., Hughes, G. J., Barnard, M., Peto, L., Vipond, R., Sienkiewicz, A., Hopkins, S., Bell, J., Crook, D. W., Gent, N., Walker, A. S., Peto, T. E., & Eyre, D. W. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 infectivity by viral load, S gene variants and demographic factors and the utility of lateral flow devices to prevent transmission. MedRxiv, 2021.03.31.21254687. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.31.21254687

  24. Nov 2020
  25. Sep 2020
    1. genetic devices have been designed for suppressing leaky basal expression levels through the engineering of super‐repressors (Ruegg et al, 2018), exploitation of antisense RNAs (O'Connor & Timmis, 1987), or physical decoupling of regulatory elements along with conditional proteolysis
    1. HARs are short stretches of DNA that while conserved in other species, underwent rapid evolution in humans following our split with chimpanzees, presumably since they provided some benefit specific to our species. Rather than encoding for proteins themselves, HARs often help regulate neighboring genes. Since both schizophrenia and HARs appear to be for the most part human-specific, the researchers wondered if there might be a connection between the two.dfp.loadAds("right2","MPU2","dfp-right2-article-1")Advertisement

      Schizophrenia is unique to humans. There are also regions that human and other species have, but have undergone more rapid evolution in humans called Human Accelerated regions (HAR).

      Maybe these HARs and Schizophrenia are linked.

      Also HARs are regions whose purpose is to regulate the expression of other genes, not so much directly code for a protein.

  26. Jul 2020
  27. Feb 2020
    1. Consequently, the plasmid donor cells do not express gfp

      Does the leaky expression not hinder the detecting and quantification of transconjugants in epifluorescence microscopy?

  28. Jan 2020
    1. a weapon — say by sabotaging the pollinators that support agriculture, or by altering the genes of innocuous wild insects so they could transmit disease
    2. Could a gene drive stop one virus only to open the way for another, more virulent one? Could it jump from one species to a related one? What would be the environmental effects, if any, of altering the genes of entire species? How about eliminating a species entirely?
    3. Besides combating malaria, gene drives could be used to alter, or even eliminate, other disease-causing insects, from the sand flies that transmit leishmaniasis to ticks that carry Lyme disease in the United States.
    1. use of the strong UAAU signal in highly expressed genes and for the occurrence of the weaker UGAC signal at several recording sites.

      three types of recoding events: stop-codon readthrough, –1 ribosome frameshifting and translational bypassing

      (Rodnina, Marina V., et al. "Translational recoding: canonical translation mechanisms reinterpreted." Nucleic acids research (2019).)

    1. suggestive of protein extension, especially at UGA codons, which rely exclusively on the reduced function RF2 variant of the K-12 strain for termination
  29. Nov 2019
    1. HGT typically adds new catabolic routes to microbial metabolic networks. This increases the chance of new metabolic interactions between bacteria
  30. Oct 2019
    1. We tested a broad range of Enterobacteriaceae conjugative plasmids for their sensitivity to the growth stage of the donors and identified three distinct regulation types.
    1. We have demonstrated that small RNAs can tightly repress their target genes when their synthesis rate is smaller than some threshold, but have little or no effect when the synthesis rate is much larger than that threshold
    2. a threshold-linear response with a tunable threshold, a robust noise resistance characteristic, and a built-in capability for hierarchical cross-talk.
    1. In particular, small RNAs are shown to establish a threshold for the expression of their target, providing safety mechanism against random fluctuations and transient signals. The threshold level is set by the transcription rate of the small RNA and can thus be modulated dynamically to reflect changing environmental conditions.
    1. in the absence of tamoxifen, it exhibits some activity
    2. strong promoters capable of driving expression of microbial opsins or fluorescent proteins in specific populations can exhibit leaky expression elsewhere. This low-level leak may be virtually undetectable as light responsiveness or fluorescence but can be a serious issue when expressing Cre recombinase.
    1. In soil, bacteria tend to live in a state of dormancy due to prevailing oligotrophic conditions, which would not be particularly favorable for the development of competence

      It can also be argued that the transformed DNA is a good resource of phosphates, nitrogen etc., so might be favoured in oligotrophic conditions?

  31. sackler.tufts.edu sackler.tufts.edu
    1. bacteria generally express genes only when and where needed, and thus do not readily reveal their pathogenic armament outside of infected tissues
    1. regulate gene expression, typically by occluding or exposing regulatory features, such as ribosome binding sites (RBSs) in the case of translation or intrinsic terminator hairpins in the case of transcription
    1. We report the construction of a family of vectors that contain a reengineered lacIq-lac promoter-operator complex in which cloned genes are strongly repressed in the absence of inducer.
  32. Aug 2019
  33. Jul 2019
  34. May 2019
  35. Mar 2019
    1. We have previously shown that antinociceptive effects of morphine are enhanced in histamine H1 receptor gene knockout mice.

      H1 antihistamines enhance the opioid high in humans. Hospitals sometimes administer antihistamines in combination with opioids. It's not hard to find people online who are using this combination recreationally.

  36. Jan 2019
  37. Nov 2018
  38. Oct 2018
  39. Sep 2018
  40. Jul 2018
    1. repeat expansion at IIL1 leads to increased accumulation of 24-nt siRNAs in a temperature-dependent manner that correlates with the iil phenotype. We show that DCL3 and other components of the RNA-dependent DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway are essential for this siRNA-directed epigenetic gene silencing
  41. Nov 2017
  42. Sep 2017
  43. Jul 2017
  44. Feb 2017
  45. Oct 2016
    1. blast

      BLAST finds regions of similarity between biological sequences. The program compares nucleotide or protein sequences to sequence databases and calculates the statistical significance.

  46. Dec 2014
    1. This can not occur in the natural world.

      Genes from unrelated species may be incorporated in the wild by the process known as horizontal gene transfer.

      For example, approximately 8% of the human genome originated in viruses.

      Up to a quarter of the cow genome apparently originated in snakes, and was probably spread by ticks around the animal kingdom.