DNA Repositories? 18
Dixie_Flatline asks: "While I was riding into work today, an odd thought popped into my head. Do we have DNA repositories, a la Titan AE, or many other science fiction stories? Let's face it, we aren't being really nice to our environment, and we may be moving off this planet *some* day. Better to start a repository now while we still have things to make a repository of, right?" Interesting thought. What projects are under way to archive the DNA of animal species worldwide, especially those endanger of becoming extinct?
Sounds like a good Idea (Score:1)
I would think do, because If you were to thaw these things out later on, we'd be screwed because they'd be cross-bred in one generation
Voyage From Yesteryear (Score:1)
Seed Archives (Score:1)
Safeguards? (Score:1)
Infomration (Score:1)
Re:Infomration (Score:1)
Thanks.
God loves all written work including typos (Score:1)
Yes, We Do. (Score:2)
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Sort of... (Score:2)
I know this because they keep hassling me for my sperm. ;-)
Kind of (Score:2)
hardware vs. software genomics (Score:1)
Yes, 'hardware' gene banks exist, where the actual molecules are stored in solution for posterity. This isn't my area, but it looks like some other posts cover this.
Also online are 'software' databases of the actual basepair sequence, mostly searchable via web, Xwindows interfaces, and often downloadable as SQL or other DBs. For instance, GenBank [nih.gov]has increasingly complete coverage of organisms ranging from Yeast through Fugu to Yo Mamma. I guess that sounds kinda bad.
Of course, if you're interested in Yo or Any Mamma, or humans in general, you can download the current 'draft freeze' from the public Human Genome Project via UC Santa Cruz [ucsc.edu].
Remember, when using the new GNU Genome Cross Compiler, to Save Early and Often...
Re:Voyage From Yesteryear (Score:1)
Re:Voyage From Yesteryear (Score:1)
Heirloom Seeds (Score:1)
Encounter 2001 (Score:1)
Re:Sounds like a good Idea (Score:1)
900 humans is the minimum. At least that's according to "Not Final!", a short story about a remote three-eyed surveyor who maps an antimatter cloud and then discovers Earth. As Earth is going to be destroyed in only a couple of years, there won't be time for enough ships to be built for enough humans to escape to preserve the species...but they hadn't even yet learned warp field technology, much less built ships.
Somehow my memory remembers that (and the rest of the story) but not why I remember there was some factual basis for that number. I think there was annotation or explanation about it.
Seed Banks (Score:1)
Plants are much easier to bank in this way than animals, becuase:
a) they produce seeds, which contain all the information required, and are nice and small.
b) most seeds last for a long time.
You can freeze about 80% of species' seeds (orthodox seeds), and they'll be good for about 15 years. After 15 years, you just defrost them, grow them, and collect the new seeds to re-freeze, for another 15 years. The problem lies in the other 20% of species (recalcitrant seeds), whose seeds you can't freeze. These are preserved by growing them, collecting the seeds, and growing those, in a continuous cycle.
Preserving genetic diversity in this way is important, especially from the point of view of discovering new medicines, and genetic engineering.
Ability (Score:1)