DNA painting

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."
-Romans 1:20-21

also published at the mainblog

Doctor Funny

Doctors were told to contribute to the construction of a new hospital
wing at the hospital. What was their reaction?

The allergists voted to scratch it.
The dermatologists preferred no rash moves.
The gastroenterologists had a gut feeling about it.
The neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve.
The obstetricians stated they were laboring under a misconception.
The ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted.
The orthopedists issued a joint resolution.
The pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!"
The pediatricians said, "Grow up."
The proctologists said, "We are in arrears."
The psychiatrists thought it was madness.
The surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.
The radiologists could see right through it.
The internists thought it was a hard pill to swallow.
The plastic surgeons said, "This puts a whole new face on the matter."
The podiatrists thought it was a big step forward.
The urologists felt the scheme wouldn't hold water.
The cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

Mary Had a Cloned Lamb

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was slightly grey,
   It didn't have a father, just some borrowed DNA.

   It sort of had a mother, though the ovum was on loan,
   It was not so much a lambkin, as a little lamby clone.

   And soon it had a fellow clone, and soon it had some more,
   They followed her to school one day, all cramming through the door.

   It made the children laugh and sing, the teachers found it droll,
   There were too many lamby clones, for Mary to control.

   No other could control the sheep, since their programs didn't vary,
   So the scientists resolved it all, by simply cloning Mary.

   But now they feel quite sheepish, those scientists unwary,
   One problem solved, but what to do, with Mary, Mary, Mary...

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills
uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are
caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen
monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes
severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive
sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting
and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent,
DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

Dihydrogen monoxide:

  * is also known as hydroxl acid, and is the major component of acid
    rain.
  * contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
  * may cause severe burns.
  * contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
  * accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
  * may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of
    automobile brakes.
  * has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every
stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is
global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO
has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and
recently California.

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

  * as an industrial solvent and coolant.
  * in nuclear power plants.
  * in the production of styrofoam.
  * as a fire retardant.
  * in many forms of cruel animal research.
  * in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce
    remains contaminated by this chemical.
  * as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be
done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on
wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

The Horror Must Be Stopped!

The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution,
or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic
health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military
organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing
multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare
situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it
through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many
store large quantities for later use.

                            It's Not Too Late!

Act NOW to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this
dangerous chemical. What you don't know can hurt you and others
throughout the world.

DNA Personal Ads

I've been single-stranded too long! Lonely ATGCATG would like to pair up with
congenial TACGTAC.

Menage a trois! Ligand seeks two receptors into binding and mutual
phosphorylation. Let's get together and transduce some signals.

Some dates have called me a promotor. Others have referred to me as a real
operator. Personally, I think I'm just a cute piece of DNA who is still
looking for that special transcription factor to help me unwind.

Highly sensitive, orally active small molecule seeks stable well-structured
receptor who knows size isn't everything.

There must be a rational way to meet a date! I'm tired of hanging out in
those molecular diversity bars, hoping to randomly bump into the right
peptide. I want a molecule that will fit right into my active site and really
turn me on. I'll send you my crystal structure if you send me yours!

Gene therapy graduate. After years of producing nothing but gibberish, I've
shed my introns and am ready to express my exons. All I need is a cute vector
to introduce me to the right host.

My RNA, I'm sorry I misread your UAAUAAUAA and inserted three tyrosines when
you repeatedly asked me to stop. Something got lost in the translation.
Please forgive me.

Naked DNA with sticky ends seeks kanamycin-resistant plasmid. EcoR1 sites
preferred.

Uninhibited virus seeks reason to make me shed my coat protein.

This very selective oliogonucleotide has been probing for just the right
target for long term hybridization.

Mature cell seeks same who still enjoys cycling and won't go apoptotic on me.
Let's fight senescence together!

I'm a prolific progenitor with great potential for growth and self-renewal.
Call me if you're a potent hematopoietic factor who still believes in endless
nights of colony stimulation.

I don't always express myself on the surface, but I'm looking for a signal
that you appreciate my complexity. Send me the right message that will
penetrate my membranes, turn on my protein expression and release my
potential energy.

The correct use of evolutionary terminology

A population of ants exists in the isolated habitat of File Drawer on Anna's table. They filled the niche of eating papers, ink and irrtating humans.

Today, a strong artificial selection pressure was applied to the population. Like all artificial selection, the end result is beneficial to Man and the rate of change in allele frequency in the population gene pool is much more rapid than natural selection can bring about. This is a directional selection favouring those ants that display a phenotype that allows them to survive in the presence of the selection pressure, which is Liquid Detergent.

Since there is no pre-existing mutation in the population that created a beneficial allele that allows the ants to be resistant to liquid detergent, all the ants were killed by the application of this selection pressure. This illustrates the importance of genetic diversity in a population, for now one can reasonably assume that there was no variation at the "soap resistance" gene locus, if such a locus ever existed. Hence, no ants are selected for in this exercise, no ants survived to reach reproductive maturity and no ants were able to pass on their alleles to their offspring.

If one or two ants survived, the population would have gone through a genetic bottleneck. The subsequent generations would have even less genetic diversity.

It is also interesting to note that the population on Anna's table is an isolated population. Perhaps Founder's Effect might apply to this population as they have obviously colonized the file drawer from another, faraway region. Interestingly, since physical reproductive isolating mechanisms are in place, had we left them alone, over time the population may have evolved enough to form a new species.

In English:
We found ants on Anna's table. We sprayed liquid detergent on them. All died.

This post is also published at themainblog.

Evo Schevo - September 2005

Had recently attended a course in NIE about evolution and diversity of organisms. While the topic is fascinating, especially the studies of homology and phylogeny, I cannot help but dispute the theory.

Many pro-evolutionists, such as Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker), while not making their views known in so many words, sass the Bible and Christian theories. For the story of Creation conflicts with the evolutionary view that we're all descended, by random chance or something close to it, in contrast to the concept of intended, intelligent and deliberate design that the Bible propagates.

There are, of course, plenty of Christian aplogetics sites that argue the case much better than I can: the CS Lewis Society Online, Stand To Reason, the Ultimate Christian Apologetics site, and plenty more one can get to by just googling.

All I have to say, though, is this:

The intricacy and beauty of the surrounding world leaves me no doubt that the world is a result of creation, and not of mere accident. Look at the Golden Gate Bridge, for instance:



What would your first thought be?

'What a marvellous feat of engineering!' or
'Wave action's what caused the stacking of all these timbers and poles into a bridge.'

Intricate and well-fashioned structures almost automatically assume the presence of a creator or designer. And yet, the smallest cell and molecules in our bodies are way more complex than even these. It's almost as if God is showing off His creativity and that He's the Origin of all beauty and precision; His creative genius is so abundant that it's evident even in the smallest designs that people haven't deigned to look at for the past thousands of years. It's almost like quality finishing in a home or a designer suit; no matter how closely you inspect a piece, you find that detail is precise to the last lovingly hand-carved fresco and the last stitch. And now, even as we acquire the technology to understand His creation better and better, humankind finds, increasingly, that at every level, His creation makes perfect sense.

It simply brings to mind Romans 1:18-23:
^"18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, ²¹ because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."

I can understand and accept natural selection as a key in micro-evolution, where species adapt to their environments over time. But macro-evolution, extending and extrapolating that theory back to primordial soup? Read this:

"We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully 'designed' to have come into existence by chance. How, then, did they come into existence? The answer, Darwin's answer, is by gradual, step- by-step transformations from simple beginnings, from primordial entities sufficiently simple to have come into existence by chance. Each successive change in the gradual evolutionary process was simple enough, relative to its predecessor, to have arisen by chance. But the whole sequence of cumulative steps constitutes anything but a chance process, when you consider the complexity of the final end-product relative to the original starting point. The cumulative process is directed by nonrandom survival. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the power of this cumulative selection as a fundamentally nonrandom process."

- Chapter 3, The Blind Watchmaker

I don't agree. Do you? That entire sequence of events, of accumulating mutations and having them all be beneficial as well as significant enough to render a change in an organism's phenotype, smacks less of a 'random event' than a miracle.

There is, by the by, in the Selfish Gene, the promulgation of the argument that we exist as mere carriers for our DNA - "that living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way around" - that we're purposeless, passive receptacles for the passing down of genetic information. To that, I say:

“ Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” - Jeremiah 1:5

But the idea that one or several of the DNA molecules in my body might be a few thousands of years old is intriguing. Heh.

Ethics of Abortion - May 2005

A controversial topic, to put it mildly.

But one, it seems, I have to tackle for my next series of lectures on Human Intervention in Reproduction. And yes, it includes human cloning too; let's not even go there for the moment.

Depressing, it has been, to read stories of abortion attempts, the heartache of those who have performed the procedure, and the gory details of details of the abortion procedure. Worse still, to stare at pictures so graphic that I can only view the majority of them at home, courtesy of MOE's site blocker.

But what is the end result?
I don't like the labels pro-choice and pro-life, because they imply mutual exclusivity. As in, if you are pro-life, you are against choice and vice versa. Untrue! A person who is pro-life HAS made a choice; that choice is to allow her child to live.

The choice, by the way, is the province of the female; the father of the child has no legal right to prevent an abortion.

Central to the debate are the issues of when does life begin? When is the fetus considered a living being, an individual person and not just a mass of tissue? What about the principle of ensoulment? At what gestational age, if at all, should it be considered to have rights? Should the rights of the fetus to live override the rights of the woman to control over her own life? Who are we to decide, on behalf of the unborn, whether he or she would WANT to come into this world?

These are not easy questions, and they do not have easy answers. I, as a biologist, am hesistant to allow science to define my morality. Is it only because medical technology can help a 24 week old fetus to live ectogenically that we consider that fetus a human and anything before not?

I can only say this: I cannot consider abortion acceptable. Two wrongs do not make a right; even if the child was conceived as a result of rape or incest, it cannot, cannot, cannot be made right by the killing of the fetus. Each individual is unique, special loved and has an indwelling purpose supplied by God; who are we to prematurely snuff out their destinies? Remember the words of God to Jeremiah, when he felt inadequate to carry the Word of God:
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations." - Jeremiah 1:5

Let the unchanging Word of God be my basis, in this as in all others. Amen.


Something to think about: A Prayer Before Birth, Louis MacNiece.
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

Huiming - May 2005

Genetic Engineering - November 2004

From Odd Perspectives:

The other day I was just talking to one of my colleagues in school over lunch. What started off as mundane complaining about our students became one of the most interesting topics I have touched on for a while - Genetic Engineering.

Before I click somewhere else on this page in search of something less boring, let me just assure you that no, I'm not going to start a long discourse on the rights and wrongs of genetic modification. And I'm not a science person, so be assured.

Anyway, we were complaining about some of our female students, how they refuse to come to school without makeup. We figured that it is their lack of a healthy self-image that they possess such an obsession about not letting ANYONE see them without a powdered nose. "Well, for them," we said, "makeup not longer serves the purpose of enhancing beauty, but is substituting it."

I related how my honeymoon trip to Thailand has led me NOT to believe the beauty I see in women on the streets there. Imagine, I saw a gorgeous babe catwalking down the street in Bangkok. Only when I saw up close did I notice she's not a she, but actually a 'he'. It was a shock then, but it made me question what makeup and cosmetic surgery can do.

What is your perception of beauty? Is there anything beautiful anymore? What if one say you realise that all you deemed pretty was actually cosmetically sculpted?

But hey, what's wrong with cosmetic surgery? It's just a more expensive, but also more permanent form of makeup, right? Besides, EVERYONE's doing it these days. Look on TV! Extreme makeover, The Swan, even the local "Mei Li Bai Fen Bai"! What's the problem, Matthew? Conservative? Old-fashioned?

Well, the arguments here are sound. But consider this: if you can operate on your body to change your appearance, to enhance your performance, to raise your self-esteem, to improve your self-image, to make things better, slimer, broader, sharper, etc etc, then what's wrong with genetic engineering??

Afterall, the only difference is that one is done after you're born, the other before, right?

But that's wrong! That's playing God! That's abusing science! That's disrupting the order of nature! That's an improved form of cosmetic surgery? I mean, what's the difference, in principle?

Let's go back to the beginning. If genetic engineering is playing God, changing and deciding on behalf of God, what we should not have right over, then what makes cosmetic surgery any less wrong? Aren't we saying, "Look God, I'm not happy with this nose. Can I change it? I mean, I have the money, they have the science. It's legal and available, so that means you have made a way out for me, which means a 'Yes'? Right God? Right, thank you Lord!"

Now if you see my point, cosmetic surgery is not as innocent as it seems. It's a trivial way of playing God.

And well, if changing our outward appearance permanently is playing God, then what about using makeup to change our outward appearance temporarily?

Think about it...
=)

Matthew - November 2004

I think the crucial difference is enhancement versus determination. if not enhancement, then why do we bother to dress well, even? The slippery-slope idea of enhancement can be extended all the way down. There's no paranoia for me here though.. haha.. I have become something of a clotheshorse in the past year. *winks*

as a biologist, and seeing the things that genetic engineering makes possible, I am both excited and scared. Genetically engineered bacteria are already extant and have been, and in use, for decades. Do we accept their use? For the most part, yes. Would you and I be willing to do without decontaminated soils, oil-polluted oceans and cheap animal feed? Hm... not a particularly strong agreement, even from me. Let's take it a step closer to home. How about genetically engineered plants? We all pay less for our vegetables simply because they have been genetically engineered to be pest-resistant, frost-resistant and more succulent; to ripen faster on the stalk and carry more nutritional value. Rice can and has had an entire biochemical pathway knocked-in for the production of Vitamin A; this rice saves the lives of millions in poorer countries who would not otherwise be able to avoid Vitamin A deficiency. Would you do without these?

One step the closer - genetically engineered animals. Salmon, cows, mice, cats and sheep. Probably, at this point, many of us would begin to shake our heads in emphatic denial. No? What's the difference between animals and plants? The difference, may I postulate, is the ability to feel and to experience emotions, ie the indwelling of what some might term a 'soul'. We become uncomfortable when we imagine that the subject of our manipulations may actually have feelings about it, and yet no choice in the matter. This is piercingly close to the state of a human embryo if it were to undergo genetic manipulation. Cosmetic enhancements like makeup and plastic surgery are done at the choice and with the consent of the individual; they merely enhance what is already present and do not change the genetic constituents of the person. I am still who and what I am, before I take off my makeup. Thus, I am NOT a backer of genetic engineering, in the sense of tinkering with a human before birth. ie transforming the entire organism. The body is the seat of the soul and the temple of the Holy Spirit, and should NOT be tinkered with lightly.

Huiming - November 2004