Hacking the People’s DNA | |
Ferly
(OP) User ID: 76773056 United States 04/09/2020 11:40 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Using viruses as nanomedicines "The field of nanomedicine involves the design and fabrication of novel nanocarriers for the intracellular delivery of therapeutic cargo or for use in molecular diagnostics. [...] Inherently biodegradable, the outer capsids of viruses are composed entirely of protein building blocks, which can be genetically or chemically engineered with molecular imaging reagents, targeting ligands and therapeutic molecules. While there are several examples of viruses as in vitro molecular cargo carriers" [link to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (secure)] |
Ferly
(OP) User ID: 76791228 United States 04/09/2020 10:22 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
Coming Into Existence
User ID: 77898782 United States 04/09/2020 10:39 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | As reported in the journal Trends in Microbiology, a virus that first infected our ancestors 100 million years ago – during the heyday time of the dinosaurs – stayed with us, all throughout the extinction of the reptilian beasts and the evolution of primates. Today, it’s a human gene that is expressed in embryos and cancers. It can even be found in the blood of pregnant women. These genomic invaders are known as human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs. Importantly, they no longer behave as viruses, in that their genetic material – RNA, a “cousin” to DNA – has been subsumed within our genome. This now gets passed down to our children, if we choose to have them. Sometimes, researchers find fragments of viral DNA within our genome, but on occasion, entire sequences are discovered. These ancient viruses all appear to be retroviruses. They infect their host cells by inserting a DNA replica of their RNA into the genome. Normally this causes a problem – as the human immunodeficiency virus does today – but it appears that sometimes the infection can be innocuous, at least during the viral infection stage. This new viral remnant means that, by the latest estimate, 8 percent of our entire genomes are comprised of ancient viruses. Tantalizingly, we have no definitive idea of what they do. I have speculated that with the advancement of agi today and the ancient megalithic architecture that cannot be replicated by machine technology today, that viruses are some form of technology created. |
Coming Into Existence
User ID: 77898782 United States 04/09/2020 10:44 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | [link to www.livescience.com (secure)] An Ancient Virus May Be Responsible for Human Consciousness That's because viruses aren't just critters that try to make a home in a body, the way bacteria do. Instead, as Live Science has previously reported, a virus is a genetic parasite. It injects its genetic code into its host's cells and hijacks them, turning them to its own purposes — typically, that means as factories for making more viruses. This process is usually either useless or harmful to the host, but every once in a while, the injected viral genes are benign or even useful enough to hang around. The 2016 review found that viral genes seem to play important roles in the immune system, as well as in the early days of embryo development. But the new papers take things a step further. Not only is an ancient virus still very much active in the cells of human and animal brains, but it seems to be so important to how they function that processes of thought as we know them likely never would have arisen without it, the researchers said. The Arc gene Shortly after a synapse fires, the viral gene known as Arc comes to life, writing its instructions down as bits of mobile genetic code known as RNA, the researchers found. (A synapse is the junction between two neurons.) RNA is DNA's messenger and agent in the world outside the cell's nucleus. A single-strand copy of code from DNA's double helix, it carries genetic instructions to places they can be useful. (And, interestingly, viruses tend to store their genetic code in RNA, rather than in DNA.) Following the Arc RNA's instructions, the nerve cell builds "capsids" — virus-like envelopes — around it. Those envelopes let it travel safely between cells, and it does just that, entering neighboring neurons and passing its packet of genetic information along to them, according to the studies. It's still unclear what that information does when it arrives in a new cell, but the researchers found that without the process functioning properly, synapses wither away. And problems with the Arc gene tend to show up in people with autism and other atypical neural conditions, the researchers said. |