Date: Tue, 06 Apr 1999 09:39:22 +0200
From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl>
Subject: RE: A more "sciency"-sounding mysticism.
To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Mills [mailto:mmills@fastlane.net]
Sent: Saturday, April 03, 1999 9:29 PM
To: Memetics List
Subject: Re: A more "sciency"-sounding mysticism.
Mark:
Are the OFRs 'real'? Certainly they can be measured with lab equipment,
so they are 'real.' On the other hand, they are not subject to direct
taste, touch or sight. Additionally, they are not clearly understood in
a functional sense. They may participate in a variety of protein
creating process.
Someone here on the list suggested we distinguish 'things' from
'patterns' by identifying physical independence or separation. 'Things'
are separate, 'patterns' can overlap. In this sense, DNA is a 'thing'
and OFRs are patterns. DNA can be isolated, OFRs cannot.
Derek:
In the Human Genome Project's software component, programs such as ORF
Finder http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gorf/gorf.html be used to isolate the
sequence for the ORFs and display it on your screen (you have to cut and
paste your segment of genome, or specify its accession number in GenBank).
Then using the appropriate PCR primers, you could actually ohysically
isolate that ORF from a human cDNA library.
So I'd say ORFs can be isolated. And if you wanted you could taste it (DNA
has a yoghurty taste) (but again, not all ORFs are genes, so isolating an
ORF wouldn't necessarily mean you had isolated a gene).
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