Re: GENOMICS: getting more from less

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Aug 11 2003 - 09:17:43 MDT

  • Next message: Brett Paatsch: "Re: To thine ownself be true? (part 1a)"

    On Mon, 11 Aug 2003, Anders Sandberg wrote:

    > You don't really get more information. The data processing theorem
    > of information theory shows that you will always lose information
    > in every step of processing, you will not be able to increase it.

    I'm not so sure Anders -- it reminds me of the statement from
    "Through the Looking Glass..." [1]. One may be able to make
    a "word" mean many things depending on the context. I'll call
    this "information overloading" and I'm not sure whether standard
    information theories can be applied. At least not standard
    theories of the information content of DNA or RNA.
    This may be similar to the overloading of natural languages
    such as the verb tenses of Danovėn [2]. I think there is also
    a similar language from Russia, perhaps Udmurtia, that overloads
    its verbs as well.

    > The question is how the inositol affects the amino acids. Anybody
    > knows?
    I don't, it looks like there may be changes in amino acids from my
    brief review. I didn't go through all the references enough to
    explore what the mapping may be. *But* this may have impacts
    in 3 domains; (a) the amino acid coding derived from the RNA;
    (b) the lifetime of the mRNA (due to the fact that non-coding
    regions of the RNA that impact structure may be critical to how
    long it takes the RNA to be degraded (and the inosine *does*
    alter the base pairing and therefore the 3-D structure of the RNA);
    and (c) the rate of translation by the ribosome if the mRNA structure
    becomes more or less "difficult" to work through.

    > In any case, it is way cool.
    Agreed.

    Robert

    1. "Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There"

        "When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, 'in rather a scornful tone,
           it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
        "The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean
           so many different things."
        "The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-that's all."

    2. Semantic words as verbs:
       http://members.tripod.com/~Paradox5/Danoven/verbs.html
       See also:
       http://members.tripod.com/~Paradox5/Danoven/history.html



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Aug 11 2003 - 09:26:48 MDT