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The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Bioengineers Introduce 'Bi-Fi' -- The Biological 'Internet'
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2012) — If you were a bacterium, the virus M13 might seem innocuous enough. It insinuates more than it invades, setting up shop like a freeloading houseguest, not a killer. Once inside it makes itself at home, eating your food, texting indiscriminately. Recently, however, bioengineers at Stanford University have given M13 a bit of a makeover.
The researchers, Monica Ortiz, a doctoral candidate in bioengineering, and Drew Endy, PhD, an assistant professor of bioengineering, have parasitized the parasite and harnessed M13's key attributes -- its non-lethality and its ability to package and broadcast arbitrary DNA strands -- to create what might be termed the biological Internet, or "Bi-Fi." Their findings were published online Sept. 7 in the Journal of Biological Engineering.
Using the virus, Ortiz and Endy have created a biological mechanism to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated between cells and could lead to greater control of biological functions within cell communities. The advance could prove a boon to bioengineers looking to create complex, multicellular communities that work in concert to accomplish important biological functions.
Medium and message
M13 is a packager of genetic messages. It reproduces within its host, taking strands of DNA -- strands that engineers can control -- wrapping them up one by one and sending them out encapsulated within proteins produced by M13 that can infect other cells. Once inside the new hosts, they release the packaged DNA message.
The M13-based system is essentially a communication channel. It acts like a wireless Internet connection that enables cells to send or receive messages, but it does not care what secrets the transmitted messages contain.
"Effectively, we've separated the message from the channel. We can now send any DNA message we want to specific cells within a complex microbial community," said Ortiz, the first author of the study.
It is well-known that cells naturally use various mechanisms, including chemicals, to communicate, but such messaging can be extremely limited in both complexity and bandwidth. Simple chemical signals are typically both message and messenger -- two functions that cannot be separated.
"If your network connection is based on sugar then your messages are limited to 'more sugar,' 'less sugar,' or 'no sugar'" explained Endy.
Cells engineered with M13 can be programmed to communicate in much more complex, powerful ways than ever before. The possible messages are limited only by what can be encoded in DNA and thus can include any sort of genetic instruction: start growing, stop growing, come closer, swim away, produce insulin and so forth.
Rates and ranges
In harnessing DNA for cell-cell messaging the researchers have also greatly increased the amount of data they can transmit at any one time. In digital terms, they have increased the bit rate of their system. The largest DNA strand M13 is known to have packaged includes more than 40,000 base pairs. Base pairs, like 1s and 0s in digital encoding, are the basic building blocks of genetic data. Most genetic messages of interest in bioengineering range from several hundred to many thousand base pairs.
Ortiz was even able to broadcast her genetic messages between cells separated by a gelatinous medium at a distance of greater than 7 centimeters.
"That's very long-range communication, cellularly speaking," she said.
Down the road, the biological Internet could lead to biosynthetic factories in which huge masses of microbes collaborate to make more complicated fuels, pharmaceuticals and other useful chemicals. With improvements, the engineers say, their cell-cell communication platform might someday allow more complex three-dimensional programming of cellular systems, including the regeneration of tissue or organs.
"The ability to communicate 'arbitrary' messages is a fundamental leap -- from just a signal-and-response relationship to a true language of interaction," said Radhika Nagpal, professor of computer science at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, who was not involved in the research. "Orchestrating the cooperation of cells to form artificial tissues, or even artificial organisms is just one possibility. This opens a door to new biological systems and solving problems that have no direct analog in nature."
Ortiz added: "The biological Internet is in its very earliest stages. When the information Internet was first introduced in the 1970s, it would have been hard to imagine the myriad uses it sees today, so there's no telling all the places this new work might lead."
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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its
full capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not
mean that I agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL"
means that I believe it is important for the people of this planet to
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articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, racist,
revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or religion, or any
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Common sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good
enough to understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug
decriminalization, it is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment,
which in this case was very clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs,
as it is stupid to throw depressed and sad people (as only depressed and
sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin their life with a criminal
record. That does not mean that there is any change to the Message which
says clearly that we must not use any drug except for medical purposes.
The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be absolute.
That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews,
anti-Semites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your
enemies or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight
them. With love and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence
of the French philosopher Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you
say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its
full capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not
mean that I agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL"
means that I believe it is important for the people of this planet to
know about what people think or do, even when what they think or do is
completely stupid and against our philosophy. When I selected articles
in the past about stupid Christian fundamentalists in America praying
for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader was stupid enough to believe
that I was supporting praying to change the weather. So, when I select
articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, racist,
revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or religion, or any
other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It just
means that it is important for all human beings to know about them.
Common sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good
enough to understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug
decriminalization, it is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment,
which in this case was very clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs,
as it is stupid to throw depressed and sad people (as only depressed and
sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin their life with a criminal
record. That does not mean that there is any change to the Message which
says clearly that we must not use any drug except for medical purposes.
The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be absolute.
That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews,
anti-Semites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your
enemies or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight
them. With love and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence
of the French philosopher Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you
say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
--
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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