From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Sep 12 2002 - 19:36:00 MDT
Well, if I were God (not saying that I'm not), then
I'd use the kind of checksum and redundancy that we
use for data on the web or on a CD. Maybe there's a
little cellular machine somewhere that sums up blocks
of DNA somehow and then looks to see if the sum
matches the figure stored elsewhere (junk DNA?). If
not, it flags that sequence and some kind of
replacement from the other strand or reverse
transcription or other repair takes place. Perhaps
germ cells have a special version that sticks a
protien out on the cell membrane that signals "this
cell not kosher."
If this isn't the case, then perhaps we could engineer
such a machine. It wouldn't have to do very much
itself - just do checksums and place flags to bring in
the repair crew.
In response to: Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 18:50:44 MDT who asked, "How
does reproduction work naturally? Do our bodies manage
to keep our germ cells from being damaged, or is there
an nternal sieve to filter out the damaged germ cells?
Can we make use of these natural mechanisms for
reproductive cloning?"
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