Posted on 08/01/2018 5:09:32 PM PDT by aimhigh
For at least the last 10 million years every yeast cell of the sort used to make beer or bread has had 16 chromosomes. But now—thanks to CRISPR technology and some DNA tinkerers in China—there are living yeast with just one.
Genome organizer: We humans have our genes arranged on 46 chromosomes, yeast use 16, and there’s even a fern plant with 1260 of them. That’s just the way it is. And no one is quite sure why.
The big one: Do we really need so many chromosomes? That’s what Zhogjun Qin and colleagues at the Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology in Shanghai wanted to know.
With CRISPR, the gene-editing tool, Qin’s team chopped out the button-like centromeres that hold each stringy chromosome together, and then started fusing them into one long chain. The result: organisms with eight, four, two, and even finally just one “single giant chromosome.”
(Excerpt) Read more at technologyreview.com ...
There’s a fern with 1260 chromosomes!
I did not know that.
I thought the most genetically complex plant was the orchid.
On the other hand I was taught that one of the simplest plants was the cannabis plant, but I admit to bias.
Yeast is yeast and west is west and never the twain shall meet...
I share your concerns, but.... like so many other elements of change in the new technologies that are emerging, it’s not a matter of liking it or disliking it, but accepting that it is out there, and competitors or antagonists will exploit it, whether we like it or not. So we need to master it and keep on top of what the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, the Iranians, etc. are doing with it.
What do you expect from commies who deny God’s existence even when the proof thereof is staring them in the face?
It isn’t nuclear war we should worry about its guy’s in clean labs.
That’s just the way it is. And no one is quite sure why. …If that is the way it is, there is a Being who made it that way. And if He did not feel the need to reveal why at this time, that is another test of faith.
The big one: Do we really need so many chromosomes? That’s what Zhogjun Qin and colleagues at the Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology in Shanghai wanted to know. …And why should the Author of DNA and chromosomes reveal why to those that deny His existence?
Boooooooooooooo!!!!!
A fall would have come in some other manner instead.
But it sure seems reckless to try to muck around with the chromosomes in the real world, and the science of the consequences may belatedly tell us at least some reasons for the partitioning. Probably something like: if it goes wrong, it will go wrong grandly.
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week.
Try the veal.
Don’t bother asking the waitress out, she only has a single chromosome and doesn’t date outside her species...
This is not going to end well....
The demise of our species will be due to a “laboratory curiosity” gone wild.
Re-engineering humanity sure would have a very bad backwards-compatibility problem!
All those low budget 50’s sci-fi movies were actually right.
Not touching that one.
Well, speaking of it as a software engineer might speak.
More chromosomes doesn’t necessarily mean more complex. Plants tend to go through whole genome duplications more so than animals.
What could go wrong?
...
Don’t you trust the Chinese to be safe?
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