Human brain cells in a dish learn to play Pong in real time...

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
<be8skhdna1j4ebn69bcm1akd20qgjukand@4ax.com>:

>And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm
 
On 2022-10-18 01:20, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 23:04:01 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-17 21:27, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:05:28 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 00:17:06 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-16 23:57, John Larkin wrote:


But the experts weren\'t shy about declaring things impossible.
Rotating biological structures are my favorite.


Example please? Or are you talking of unicellular things with
cilia? That would be cheating.

Jeroen Belleman


Cilia was a classic case. Experts said that rotation was an optical
illusion. Some kid glued down a cilia and saw the entire bacteria
rotating.

The DNA splitter helicase rotates about 10,000 RPM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8gH404a3Gg

some molecular motors go over 100,000 RPM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyd4CfYfVCA

The key here is the unspoken assumption that if we cannot see a path,
there can be no path.

And a spoken but untrue assumption is that useless mutations are
quickly deleted, and so cannot evolve. There is lots of random
redundancy in genomes, so previously useless variation may one day
become slightly advantageous, and it\'s off to the races.

Rinse and repeat. A million years is many many generations, so the
advantage can be quite tiny, and still it evolves.

A classic large-scale example is when a chromosome (or a part thereof)
is accidentally duplicated, so now the critter has two genes for the
same thing. Before, that gene was constrained to continue to serve
the original function. After, one of the pair can remain the same
while the other evolves independently. This pattern has been seen
many times.

Joe Gwinn


Beside the point. We were talking about rotating biological structures.
Can we have beasts with freely rotating wheels or propellers? Sounds
like a fun idea to use in a science fiction novel.

Ciliated bacteria are just such a critter.

I actually recall such a ScFi story, from the 1970s, but don\'t recall
title or author.

But more or less the same rotary mechanism is seen in mammalian cells
as well, as shown in the various videos.

Joe Gwinn

Different rules apply to microscopic life. What about one having the
size of a rabbit or bigger?

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)
 
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:11:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje
<pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69bcm1akd20qgjukand@4ax.com>:

And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm

So why was it called junk?
 
On 2022-10-18 20:07, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:11:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69bcm1akd20qgjukand@4ax.com>:

And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm

So why was it called junk?

Because at the time it didn\'t seem to have any purpose?
Genetics is a young science. Much remains to be found.

Jeroen Belleman
 
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 20:19:48 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-18 20:07, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:11:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69bcm1akd20qgjukand@4ax.com>:

And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm

So why was it called junk?


Because at the time it didn\'t seem to have any purpose?

Then call it \"unknown\", not \"junk.\"

>Genetics is a young science. Much remains to be found.

Then experts shouldn\'t declare things to be impossible.
 
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-18 01:20, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 23:04:01 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-17 21:27, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:05:28 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 00:17:06 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-16 23:57, John Larkin wrote:


But the experts weren\'t shy about declaring things impossible.
Rotating biological structures are my favorite.


Example please? Or are you talking of unicellular things with
cilia? That would be cheating.

Jeroen Belleman


Cilia was a classic case. Experts said that rotation was an optical
illusion. Some kid glued down a cilia and saw the entire bacteria
rotating.

The DNA splitter helicase rotates about 10,000 RPM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8gH404a3Gg

some molecular motors go over 100,000 RPM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyd4CfYfVCA

The key here is the unspoken assumption that if we cannot see a path,
there can be no path.

And a spoken but untrue assumption is that useless mutations are
quickly deleted, and so cannot evolve. There is lots of random
redundancy in genomes, so previously useless variation may one day
become slightly advantageous, and it\'s off to the races.

Rinse and repeat. A million years is many many generations, so the
advantage can be quite tiny, and still it evolves.

A classic large-scale example is when a chromosome (or a part thereof)
is accidentally duplicated, so now the critter has two genes for the
same thing. Before, that gene was constrained to continue to serve
the original function. After, one of the pair can remain the same
while the other evolves independently. This pattern has been seen
many times.

Joe Gwinn


Beside the point. We were talking about rotating biological structures.
Can we have beasts with freely rotating wheels or propellers? Sounds
like a fun idea to use in a science fiction novel.

Ciliated bacteria are just such a critter.

I actually recall such a ScFi story, from the 1970s, but don\'t recall
title or author.

But more or less the same rotary mechanism is seen in mammalian cells
as well, as shown in the various videos.

Joe Gwinn


Different rules apply to microscopic life. What about one having the
size of a rabbit or bigger?

Never been done, apparently. Probably because the current way works
better.


Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

Huh? Critter is just some kind of living thing; no statement as to
how or where it came from.

Joe Gwinn
 
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 11:07:08 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:11:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69bcm1akd20qgjukand@4ax.com>:

And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm

So why was it called junk?

Because people didn\'t understand what it did, and were not interested
at the time. But they didn\'t know what they didn\'t know.

It was clear from the statistical properties of junk DNA that it is
not random noise - it had the same 1/f statistics as music and natural
language, and of DNA whose purpose was at least partly known.

It turned out to be the control system that decides when and where to
make this or that protein.

Joe Gwinn
 
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-18 01:20, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 23:04:01 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-17 21:27, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:05:28 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 00:17:06 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-16 23:57, John Larkin wrote:


But the experts weren\'t shy about declaring things impossible.
Rotating biological structures are my favorite.


Example please? Or are you talking of unicellular things with
cilia? That would be cheating.

Jeroen Belleman


Cilia was a classic case. Experts said that rotation was an optical
illusion. Some kid glued down a cilia and saw the entire bacteria
rotating.

The DNA splitter helicase rotates about 10,000 RPM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8gH404a3Gg

some molecular motors go over 100,000 RPM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyd4CfYfVCA

The key here is the unspoken assumption that if we cannot see a path,
there can be no path.

And a spoken but untrue assumption is that useless mutations are
quickly deleted, and so cannot evolve. There is lots of random
redundancy in genomes, so previously useless variation may one day
become slightly advantageous, and it\'s off to the races.

Rinse and repeat. A million years is many many generations, so the
advantage can be quite tiny, and still it evolves.

A classic large-scale example is when a chromosome (or a part thereof)
is accidentally duplicated, so now the critter has two genes for the
same thing. Before, that gene was constrained to continue to serve
the original function. After, one of the pair can remain the same
while the other evolves independently. This pattern has been seen
many times.

Joe Gwinn


Beside the point. We were talking about rotating biological structures.
Can we have beasts with freely rotating wheels or propellers? Sounds
like a fun idea to use in a science fiction novel.

Ciliated bacteria are just such a critter.

I actually recall such a ScFi story, from the 1970s, but don\'t recall
title or author.

But more or less the same rotary mechanism is seen in mammalian cells
as well, as shown in the various videos.

Joe Gwinn


Different rules apply to microscopic life. What about one having the
size of a rabbit or bigger?

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just
makes sense.
 
On Wednesday, October 19, 2022 at 10:44:41 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman <jer...@nospam.please> wrote:
On 2022-10-18 01:20, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 23:04:01 +0200, Jeroen Belleman <jer...@nospam.please> wrote:
On 2022-10-17 21:27, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 16 Oct 2022 17:05:28 -0700, John Larkin <jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2022 00:17:06 +0200, Jeroen Belleman <jer...@nospam.please> wrote:
On 2022-10-16 23:57, John Larkin wrote:

<snip>

A classic large-scale example is when a chromosome (or a part thereof)
is accidentally duplicated, so now the critter has two genes for the
same thing. Before, that gene was constrained to continue to serve
the original function. After, one of the pair can remain the same
while the other evolves independently. This pattern has been seen
many times.

Beside the point. We were talking about rotating biological structures.
Can we have beasts with freely rotating wheels or propellers? Sounds
like a fun idea to use in a science fiction novel.

Ciliated bacteria are just such a critter.

I actually recall such a ScFi story, from the 1970s, but don\'t recall title or author.

But more or less the same rotary mechanism is seen in mammalian cells
as well, as shown in the various videos.

Different rules apply to microscopic life. What about one having the
size of a rabbit or bigger?

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just makes sense.

Except that you then have to dream up a mechanism to create the creator.

You also have to explain the aspects of \"intelligent design\" that are brain-numbingly stupid.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
On Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 1:15:55 PM UTC-7, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 20:19:48 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jer...@nospam.please> wrote:

Genetics is a young science. Much remains to be found.

Then experts shouldn\'t declare things to be impossible.

When did an expert do that? In a drama, on stage perhaps?
Unless one visits contrarian sites, that kind of declaration is rare.
Real experts don\'t confuse
unlikely or improbable with impossible.
 
On Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 1:12:28 AM UTC-4, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69...@4ax.com>:
And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.
It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm

I recall some years ago, a project used random mutation of an FPGA design along with simulation, to produce a circuit that was rated by how closely the output matched the desired result. Selection would be applied to a population and generations were repeated (I don\'t recall if there was anything like gene swapping). After some number of generations, a result was found that produced a pretty good likeness of the desired output, but would have random appearing glitches.

The circuit itself was totally incomprehensible. This seems a pretty good analog to evolution in life forms. Life forms have been at it for a lot more generations.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 2:07:21 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:11:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonSt...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69...@4ax.com>:

And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm
So why was it called junk?

Because at the time our understanding of DNA was that of a blueprint for proteins. We have since learned that DNA has other levels of function, including gene regulation. It is one of those evolutionary inventions that gets more and more complicated as it progresses. It\'s a shame we can\'t hang around long enough to see where it turns next.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On Tuesday, October 18, 2022 at 7:04:44 PM UTC-4, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 11:07:08 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:11:50 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaonSt...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:48:17 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jla...@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
be8skhdna1j4ebn69...@4ax.com>:

And junk DNA. We don\'t understand it so it must be useless.

It has a purpose
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211018140504.htm

So why was it called junk?
Because people didn\'t understand what it did, and were not interested
at the time. But they didn\'t know what they didn\'t know.

I can assure you they were very interested. They simply had little to work with to figure it out. Many discoveries take serious time. Science requires patience.


It was clear from the statistical properties of junk DNA that it is
not random noise - it had the same 1/f statistics as music and natural
language, and of DNA whose purpose was at least partly known.

It turned out to be the control system that decides when and where to
make this or that protein.

We think of DNA as being a blueprint for protein. We found the code for amino acids and know how proteins are constructed, using the chemical machinery of the cell. But DNA is also part of the chemical machinery, and not just the blueprints to be copied over and over. It is part of the regulatory mechanism for determining when to express what gene.

Chemistry is really complex. Most people who work in it, touch only a tiny part.

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On 2022-10-19 00:56, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

Huh? Critter is just some kind of living thing; no statement as to
how or where it came from.

Joe Gwinn

\'Critter\' is a bastardization of \'creature\'.

Jeroen Belleman
 
On 2022-10-19 01:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just
makes sense.

Assuming the existence of a creator does not solve the problem
of the origin of life. How did the creator come to be?

Jeroen Belleman
 
On 19/10/2022 00:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:


Different rules apply to microscopic life. What about one having the
size of a rabbit or bigger?

Probably not possible unless they had very peculiar plumbing that could
reconnect. Closest you get is probably an owls head which can turn
through an amazing angle to face its prey without moving its body.

Engineering can do it but I don\'t think nature ever has (apart from at
the microscopic level) - the VLA had anti twister mechanisms on the
umbilical cords for the main dishes (in reality they were non ideal and
had to be untwisted before they tightened up too much).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-twister_mechanism

It avoided embarrassment when objects got too near the zenith. Being on
an altaz mount means that the spin rate for the azimuth driver becomes
unacceptably high the closer you go. Observations were pre checked to
avoid the danger zone where the scope could not keep up with the sky.

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just
makes sense.

Until you ask \"who created the creator?\". Pushing the problem back just
one level is the pathetic \"just so story\" of the Goddidit brigade.

If he got to do *anything* in this universe then it was choosing the 6
fundamental constants of nature at the moment of the Big Bang.

I find the multiverse explanation far more convincing (although it too
may still be inaccurate and/or incomplete). We will only know for sure
when we have a full GUT that merges gravity with all other forces.

Or find another previously undetected force of nature. This sort of
thing usually happens just after someone very senior in an after dinner
speech says words to the effect of \"There is nothing new to be
discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise
measurement.\". Then came radioactivity and quantum mechanics. Oops!

https://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Kelvin.html

Last sentence first paragraph.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
 
On Wed, 19 Oct 2022 10:10:52 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-19 01:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just
makes sense.


Assuming the existence of a creator does not solve the problem
of the origin of life. How did the creator come to be?

Jeroen Belleman

Evolution, somewhere else in the universe billions of years ago.
Likely not our DNA life form, which is arguably irreducibly complex
and could not have originated by itself on earth.

Something extraordinary certainly happened.

\"There was no creator\" is as religious a statement as \"there was a
creator.\" Both put emotion ahead of thinking, which is of course the
normal human condition.
 
On a sunny day (Wed, 19 Oct 2022 08:09:57 -0700) it happened John Larkin
<jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote in
<6b40lh58vacre6gqlqqfv5ahsqtplbn22l@4ax.com>:

On Wed, 19 Oct 2022 10:10:52 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-19 01:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just
makes sense.


Assuming the existence of a creator does not solve the problem
of the origin of life. How did the creator come to be?

Jeroen Belleman

Evolution, somewhere else in the universe billions of years ago.
Likely not our DNA life form, which is arguably irreducibly complex
and could not have originated by itself on earth.

Well if you look at the simple ape, then a human
then modern society with micro chips and smartphones and radio and TV
and space travel, is it not OBVIOUS that a growing complexity
is nature\'s way?

I am sure life is everywhere where the conditions allow.
It if fascinating that a few nuclear processes in stars have such a super complicated consequence
as our society.

All is self organizing.
from the electron orbiting a nucleus to us typing these messages,
 
Am 19.10.22 um 17:09 schrieb John Larkin:

Evolution, somewhere else in the universe billions of years ago.
Likely not our DNA life form, which is arguably irreducibly complex
and could not have originated by itself on earth.

Shifting it to some other place does not remove the problem.

And avoiding life seems to be much harder than creating live.
Oh my goddess, what did my colleges at Verigy (ex HP) fill into
the cooling water of their wafer testers? Ugly things you would
not want in your house. And no, it did not help. A transparent
tube that did pass a bit of light, et voilà: green slime.

Intelligent life out there? Impossible to deny.
And the surest thing about that is the fact that they did not
try to contact us.

\"There was no creator\" is as religious a statement as \"there was a
creator.\"

No. It is a religous statement as much as abstinence is a sex game.
(much like Christopher Hitchens, IIRC)

Gerhard
 
On 2022-10-19 17:09, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 19 Oct 2022 10:10:52 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-10-19 01:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 09:02:25 +0200, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]

Jeroen Belleman (Who doesn\'t like \'critter\' because there was no
creator.)

You can\'t be sure about that either. I suspect that there was; it just
makes sense.


Assuming the existence of a creator does not solve the problem
of the origin of life. How did the creator come to be?

Jeroen Belleman

Evolution, somewhere else in the universe billions of years ago.
Likely not our DNA life form, which is arguably irreducibly complex
and could not have originated by itself on earth.

You shouldn\'t introduce extra levels of complexity if there is no
compelling reason. Occam\'s razor. Why would evolution elsewhere be
more probable than evolution down here on earth?

Something extraordinary certainly happened.

That remains to be seen. Maybe life is inevitable, once certain
basic conditions are met.

\"There was no creator\" is as religious a statement as \"there was a
creator.\" Both put emotion ahead of thinking, which is of course the
normal human condition.

Nothing emotional about it. Postulating the existence of a creator
does not solve the problem of the existence of life. It just adds
an extra level of indirection. Evolution is a scientific theory
that does away with the need for a creator. The outline of what
must have happened for life to begin is pretty clear, even ifmany
details remain to be filled in. That\'s the way science works.

Jeroen Belleman
 

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