The Newer Scientist
The Genetic Code
In a surprise move, Sly Spender, enfant terrible of the world of genetics, has announced a huge new human genome analysis project. Billed as "The Bible Code Meets the Genetic Code (Plus a Bit of the Da Vinci Code)", Spender is proposing to apply the principles of large-scale computer analysis to the `text' of DNA in an attempt to uncover some of the hidden secrets of the stuff of life.
With about three billion base pairs in the human genome, that's a lot of text.
The fundamental coding units of DNA are the nucleic acids Guanine, Cytosine, Adenine and Thymine. From the four `letters' GCAT the amino acid building blocks of life are made.
But Spender is not proposing to analyse these letters: "After all, you can only get "CAT", "TAG", "TAC" and maybe "GAT", and one of those is part of the name of a minty sweet, so it doesn't really count.
"What we've chosen to do instead is take a look at the amino acids; there are 20 or so - nearly enough to cover the alphabet, certainly if we combine certain letters, like C and K or G and J.
"We started by taking the most common letter in English - E - and assigning to it the most common amino acid - glycine, and then we worked our way through to Z. We've produced our own amino acid `alphabet' in this way."
The next step is analysing the DNA to uncover the messages hidden therein.
Spender's team is using the most recent version of the full human genome, but they are starting with the so-called `junk DNA', vast sections of code that are apparently non-functioning remnants of our ancestors' DNA.
Spender is not sure what they will find there: "Maybe there will be short instructions, like "Do not use", or "This way up."."
Spender goes on to speculate that other sections of Junk DNA could contain more complex notes, like "put arms here" or "add immunity to the plague?":
"If DNA is the book of life, then these are the footnotes.". Indeed, some groups are already looking to Spender to discover some deeper truths in the DNA code.
Jim Spiffing, from the literalist bible group It's All True, wondered if they might find some proof of the story of Genesis: "A date stamp would be good, like `Created Saturday, March 23rd, 4004 B.C.'.
"Any DNA that we share with plants will probably be dated a few days before. And if they don't find "Eve" buried in the mitochondrial DNA, I'll eat my hat."
When asked if he was looking to find God, or any creator for that matter, in the messages hidden in the DNA, Spender replied:
"Not really, I'm just hoping to make a sackload of money.
"If there's God in those base pairs all the better - the book will sell even more in middle America.
"I'm not convinced Dan Brown was on the right lines with his history book - if we discover the real location of the Holy Grail, then I might as well retire."
