How to become an X-Man.

Daikun

Lee and Kirby must have been psychics.

Scientists have created a synthetic DNA called XNA, which is stronger than the real thing.

The best part is, it's compatible with DNA. The potential for evolution has been made easier.

Victor Frost

Hmm... *files it away for future study*

WindUpBird

The potential for evolution has been made easier.

No. Part of the reason we have such complex cellular repair mechanisms and relatively strong defenses against tens of thousands of daily mutation events is precisely because our DNA is fragile. The substitution of a stronger macromolecule for DNA would likely run counter to the evolution of more robust repair and defense mechanism by removing a key environmental pressure.

Remember: ease of survival does not encourage evolution, difficulty of survival does. I'm not saying XNA can't evolve, just that it won't replace our own systems anytime soon. Also, you'd likely have to build an entirely new organism to work with this stuff. Immune systems really (really) don't like xenobiotic long-chain polysaccharides.

Not nine

Impervious to natural enzymes that degrade RNA and DNA? Sounds like it might be very difficult for a cell to actually read the information on the XNA meaning it will have a difficult time surviving and dividing. It even says they don't have any systems yet to get it to replicate itself.

You'd probably die if you attempted to swallow some of the enzymes that convert DNA to XNA, and if you'd survive, you would be in danger of having become one complete cancerous growth.

WindUpBird

Nine's right. Degradation of RNA and DNA is a hugely important part of biology; you can't have replication without DNA degradation, and without RNA degradation, you have shit like telomerase floating around forever. Only tumors and stem cells produce telomerase constitutively.

Yet another example of the media misunderstanding science. I don't doubt that XNA has applications in bioreactors or something, but it's pretty useless in a living system.

Not nine

I could see it being an interesting aspect of some biopunk stuff. Several large chains of XNA storing important governmental conspiracy-level secrets for transport by the president's favourite fern.

WindUpBird

Hmmm, didn't think of that, but yeah. It has interesting applications for biologic information storage, which is rather hot shit right now.

Not nine

It'll probably too large for actual data storage though. But it's a non-magnetic backup of sorts, and putting everything in Faraday cages makes for a slightly less interesting fiction.

WindUpBird

Well, an unwound strand would be too long. But after supercoiling, each strand becomes immensely dense in chromosomal form. Estimating based on 250k base pairs in Chromosome I, at 2 bits per base pair with 46 chromosomes per a neuron .004 cubic microns in volume, a computer with a "storage" unit one cubic centimeter in volume composed of neurons engineered to store data in a secondary nucleus could theoretically hold the equivalent of 125k exabytes of data in its condensed form.

Access time is a different matter, though it's likely you wouldn't use a system like this for anything needing rapid access.

Anthony Heman

Well, an unwound strand would be too long. But after supercoiling, each strand becomes immensely dense in chromosomal form. Estimating based on 250k base pairs in Chromosome I, at 2 bits per base pair with 46 chromosomes per a neuron .004 cubic microns in volume, a computer with a "storage" unit one cubic centimeter in volume composed of neurons engineered to store data in a secondary nucleus could theoretically hold the equivalent of 125k exabytes of data in its condensed form.

Access time is a different matter, though it's likely you wouldn't use a system like this for anything needing rapid access.

I like where this theory is going.

Omnutia

Now I can see why Wub tries to hard to kill his brain cells.

WindUpBird

Now I can see why Wub tries to hard to kill his brain cells.

Hey now, let's be real. Only excitotoxic lesions (as a result of withdrawal in alcoholics, hence "the shakes" and sometimes seizures) kill brain cells. Which would explain why after a prodigious amount of tequila, vodka, and absinthe, I attempted to write a conceptual outline for a neural network AI on my iPhone, in a crowded nightclub.

But seriously: I may drink plenty, but I have no desire to do lasting damage, nor do I think I've ever pushed it to that point. I treasure my brain; in the end, what else do you have?

Anyway, neuronal chips have a lot of computing and storage potential anyway since the cells learn. If you could just figure out a way to create a "cellular hard drive," you'd have something worth billions. Think about how much data a hunk of tissue the size of a normal computer tower could hold!

Josh Bytes

The science is very interesting but way over my head. So would it be possible to create artificial organs using XNA?

Neito

The science is very interesting but way over my head. So would it be possible to create artificial organs using XNA?

Probably, but you'd only be able to use them on Windows and XBox.

Josh Bytes

WindUpBird

The science is very interesting but way over my head. So would it be possible to create artificial organs using XNA?

No. They'd quickly become either catastrophically apoptotic or tumorous, if I'm reading the paper correctly.

You don't need any synthetic bio to do tissue engineering. Scaffolds, bioreactors, stem cells, and a map of cell signals, yeah. But XNA has absolutely no bearing on the majority of what we're working on nowadays.

EDIT: In terms of tissue and synthetic bio, that is. I agree that it would be useful for biologic growth of certain compounds in an industrial setting, or (as the scientists behind it are hopeful about) for gene silencing therapies and the like. Beyond those two (no doubt quite significant) things, I'm not sure what other applications a nucleic acid with no existing endo- or exonucleases would have, given that you can't really sidestep the importance of those things in the cell cycle.

Not nine

Well, an unwound strand would be too long. But after supercoiling, each strand becomes immensely dense in chromosomal form. Estimating based on 250k base pairs in Chromosome I, at 2 bits per base pair with 46 chromosomes per a neuron .004 cubic microns in volume, a computer with a "storage" unit one cubic centimeter in volume composed of neurons engineered to store data in a secondary nucleus could theoretically hold the equivalent of 125k exabytes of data in its condensed form.

Access time is a different matter, though it's likely you wouldn't use a system like this for anything needing rapid access.

Atom-scaled storage is better.

I treasure my brain; in the end, what else do you have?

Your penis of course.

The science is very interesting but way over my head. So would it be possible to create artificial organs using XNA?

As Wubwub explained several posts ago, in laymans terms, the cells wouldn't grow old and die (due to telomerase fixing the end that gets chopped off repeatedly during replication), while still replicating themselves (if they find a way for XNA to replicate itself that is). If they don't find a way for XNA to replicate itself, it'll probably not have any reliable way to fix itself either which is just as bad.

WindUpBird

Atom-scaled storage is better.

Yeah, provided you have the gear necessary to keep its temperature low enough to function nominally. Biostorage could function at normal temperatures without supercooling, if you got it to work. Both technologies have trade-offs.

I treasure my brain; in the end, what else do you have?

Your penis of course.

Another thing I don't jeopardize.