[sheber]

I liken them (junk dna) to placeholders. You know, bookmarks, coasters, spacer gifs....They do serve a purpose, no matter how trivial.

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

So really - however many topics/pages/responses/irrelevancies/junk dna strands we've come from the original question... essentially we're still left with the fact that which genetics may well be an up and coming technology, that it's not like we're going to all wake up tomorrow, switch on our TVs and hear the news that bigger breasts are just a painless injection away?

I think that one should always have realistic expectations of these things - I've lost count of all the technologies touted to be "the next big thing" which have either vanished or are still in the pipeline. Besides, profitable as easy BE would be, surely people would have their sights on loftier goals? Intelligence, curing cancer and other genetic illnesses etc.

[sheber]

Like finding a cure for surliness?

[rtpoe]

LOL!!!

rtpoe

[flashbigger]

Surliness. Burrrn!
 
 At any rate, as far as the 'next big thing' goes, this is nothing new. As a good example, I once read a book by Dr. Alexander Cannon... can't even remember why that name would stick with me, but there it is. It was called "Powers that Be" and it held a number of then revolutionary ideas that are only JUST gaining publicity today. Problem was, the last chapter talks about a mathematical formula for predicting the end of the world.
 Well, before that date, the book sold hundreds of thousands of copies. When that date came and went, of course then good Doc Cannon was just nuts.

 Wasted space? Probably not. It wasn't a well known fact, but the date the good ol' Doc had gotten from his formula was the day Hitler came to power... Obviously the world didn't end, but the permutations of his equation didn't SAY anything about the end of the world. They, when different base variables were supplied, came up with such dates as those that coincided with earth quakes, fires, wars, and many other famous disasters. I recall reading about a guy that had continued using the equation on Unsolved Mysteries...

 Back to DNA. We have figured out the general uses of some junk DNA we contain, by cross checking with many other, far more simple, types of life. If nothing else, junk DNA can act as a history for evolution, by seeing which animals share similar lines, even if millions of years separate them. Also, a genetic defect in these codes still causes problems from the beginning, not the least of which is cancer. A common theory I've heard likens them to computer programming. If anyone out there knows C++ (and I'm sure we have at LEAST a dozen), they could be thought of as includes. If you ever go back and look through the code of a lot of those NECESSARY includes, it looks positively antiquated. Rewriting them would be a snap! ... But then of course, I found out that in MY rewriting techniques, I was including a few of the antiquated codes I was trying to replace...
 In genetics it could be much the same way. Our own Junk DNA is antiquated and not directly used, but it still has to be there to tell the CURRENT, more high level codes what they should be doing...
 Or, it's possible that all of that is bullshit. After all, I can't cite source... I don't remember who told me that analogy. Thoughts?

~Flash_obj{ cout: "Includes are the devil"
            Bigger_RGB(0,0,0};
 

[sheber]

That's not far off from my placeholder theory.

[L_C_R_ANT]

Thank you, FlashBigger, that's the exact point I was trying to make.  

I got that theory from a show on genetics I saw a few years ago and one of the things they mentioned was that it was either the earthworm or the fruit fly (can't quite remeber) that only had like 11 genes.  The odd thing they said was that genes effectively identical to them are still in our DNA.

[flashbigger]

Well, if my adapted hypothesis is correct, then, the key to breast altering probably wouldn't lie in junk DNA. Well, no that's not quite right. IT WOULD be there, but altering any of that would be like changing all the place holders of the code. For example one thing boobs and brains have in common is the accumulation of fatty tissues... and that's not a balance that should really be screwed with, is it? It's like including the basic rules of math in a programming code. If you find the equation, H + DG = BE (Where H is hormonal input, and DG is active Dominant Gene for the breast) you could easily alter it to H * DG = BE, and you'd end up with massively oversized breasts all around, but what if we find out that DG also controls rate of growth for something else, like the intestines?

 So, the solution is a localization factor, should these genes ever effectively be identified.
 Supposing we take an active retrovirus and put it in the blood stream that will alter all new cells produced with our new equation.
 This is where our localization factor comes in. Rather than have a virus that can bond with any cell, you create one that requires the gene caps of a developed mammary cell. All other attempts at infection fail, because other cells don't have the right blueprint for them to hang on to.

 Or, back in my programming analogy, we change it thusly:

 Original:  H + DG = BE
  Altered:  IF GC = 1 { H * DG = BE}
                    ELSE {H + DG = BE}
, where in the altered version, GC (Gene Cap) is true.

 Now, I'm not entirely daft. I realize that this is a sore analogy for the reality of the situation, but it IS an idea, right?

Flash ~ I once thought of being a programmer and then realized I was mathematically retarted ~ Bigger    

[Chronicler]

HHH, I quoted my source. If you must know, please buy the book as it contains an exhausting bibliography. This guy is no chump, and he took a lot of risks putting it out. All I will say is that I have better things to do than lie to you about this.

Quote:
Besides, profitable as easy BE would be, surely people would have their sights on loftier goals? Intelligence, curing cancer and other genetic illnesses etc.

And this is the idea I failed to link explicitly with my comments about ethics. I'm assuming too much here. But, this is how science seems to work in a capitalist environment. Profitability and funding play the major role. Most stuff is not even developed without some form of consumer or military demand. There are varying degrees of separation, but ultimately we owe lots of our current tech to NASA and the DoD, and well, the Soviets... state funded stuff.

Another thing some projects do is take trial and error scenarios to the extreme. You cannot deny the poison and corruption the 'progress' of the industrial revolution caused. Here's the other thing, we have alternative means for energy sources now, but we remain in destructive global conflict over limited fossil fuel resources, which destroy the environment even more. A culture who willingly destroys their own habitat in the name of progress. Well, follow those ethics and the culture itself will cease to exist. Those are the ethics of a few greedy people, a few greedy people underpinning the world economy and with a huge stake in US Gov't. Apply those same ethics to this subject, and the results are even more horrific, in my opinion. Laws or not, classifying documents is a great way to conceal crimes until you're dead..

So, even if a common genetic thread in busty women is found, how are you going to create or alter a life form, a human life form, genetically without producing a terminal condition at all, is the question I would ask. And since apparently no one seems to think genetics alone can point the finger at how to alter a person's genetic composition properly, we are stuck looking at other areas for answers. The closest link I can come to, is how our bodies and their functions are regulated by our brains. That would be an area I would want to look into in order to logically approach an unknown variable in this subject... start with something that has common terms, yet has uncommon terms as well.

There are things about the way our brain functions that we do not fully comprehend yet either. I think better understanding this could also lead to a breakthrough in eugenics. There are tests which show a rat can have sufficient motor skills and cognitive recall to navigate a maze successfully with large portions of their brains excised. Michael Talbot draws a very interesting conclusion to how the brain and its function seems to correlate to how a hologram behaves. So assuming we still need to better understand how our biological processes are regulated, I think this is at least worth a glance.

That leads me ultimately to the discussion on wave energy, and other quantum mechanics. Not just because of one hypothesis about the form and function of the brain, but also due to the fact that photons exhibit properties of both waves and particles. Since this would appear to be a union of mechanics formerly though of as independent from one another, then is it reasonable to hypothesize that for every particle there is also an equivalent wave form quantum scheme? That is, since the two types of quanta coexist within photons. If we can observe particulate matter behaving in one way, how can we, if at all, begin to build an accurate quantum model of that process.

So, what if we briefly entertain the notion that if a 'super conscious' is possible at a specific wavelength, and our brains are somehow receptive to that information, how could this be having an effect on our biology, since it is our brains that regulate our integrated systems? Could that be a possible avenue for exploration seeing that altering an integrated system, or introducing foreign elements to it seems to always have disastrous results? Could it be that this alone is not enough, and just throws the balance out of synch? What if we have some kind of electromagnetic reference point which affects how our brains manage the content of our bodies?  

[sheber]

I don't forsee this proposal getting results any sooner than the aforementioned techniques...

[flashbigger]

The theories about a superconsciousness and its inherent control over our biology are definitely important ones. Because, the fact remains, after two centuries worth of tinkering around in there, we know about two percent of the mysteries of human consciousness.
 The DANGERs of such theories are in the questions they raise: Is consciousness evidence of a soul? If so, does that imply a God? And if so, does this imply moral codes to be concerned with?
 Is debunking the soul, as it were, a science we should even be screwing with?

 Metaphysics - the little respected cluster of sciences that this falls into into - are just too new, and too unexplored for such generous control as breast enlargement. Which isn't to say it's not possible. People had gun powder for quite a long time before we actually understood WHY it worked. So maybe a hardcore workout of hypnosis, mental control, and electromagnetics COULD result in significantly larger breasts; perhaps this is why over the counter breast enlargement pills only work in some cases and not others. Perhaps some women are merely 'open' to the idea of breast growth. Maybe some are determined enough to program their subconscious with growth instructions.
 
 But look at my programming shpeel. It sounds good, I think. But it's utter BS until we know about three times as much about genetics as we do now. Which, again, doesn't mean a sex obsessed genetics student won't stumble across the key to genetically giant breasts. That's the nature of a scientific "breakthru", after all. It DOES, however, mean that debate about it is all hearsay and guesswork.
 And did I actually say anything meaningfull in this post? I'm pretty sure there's a languid point somewhere in that rambling mess... Aw well...

Flash ~if I only had a brain~ Bigger  

[rtpoe]

Geez, you go away for a few days and when you get back, your favorite porn site is discussing ethics and metaphysics.

rtpoe

[sheber]

Porn? Where?

[Chronicler]

Well, all I'm trying to do is draw an abstract that might help quantify something else. The key area to look at in my opinion is DNA and the relationship to 'junk DNA'. And to that, if junk DNA is just a placeholder, a bookend if you will, it still has to have a relationship with DNA if even this barely signifigant relationship is to exist.

I think of it like someone calling in a report to a terminal, to speak generically. The terminal is sort of a placeholder to make sure my report is 'valid', so it can represent 'junk DNA'. I am supposing it to work like some sort of genetic checksum. So, I am trying to quantify a possible third element in the equation. In this abstract, the phone line would serve as a third element. Without it, I am still 'here' and the terminal is still 'there', but no meaningful relationship can take place without that third element, the phone line.

So, how can we understand how 'A' and 'B' work together (which we don't) until we consider that we are not taking all applicable factors into account. I don't see how simply rehashing everything we already know about genes is going to produce anything but a situation where we have to wait for something to accidentally jump out at us because we are just throwing what we do know into a big pile and waiting to see what it does. Byproducts be damned. I think it's a better idea to approach it from the aspect of trying to better understand that which we do not know, actively and philosophically rather than playing the role of casual observer.

[Esteban_Jones]

Finding a correlation between big boobs and specific genes would only serve to point the way to a means of stimulating breast growth. I wouldn't necessarily propose altering anybody's genes. You know, maybe we wouldn't find any significant correlation at all.

The mouse issue is important. If we have the same genes as a mouse, except for a modest 300 or so, well to me that implies a few things (and "we're human because the collective consciousness says so" isn't one of them!):

 

 
• We have a lot in common with mice (a tremendous understatement)
• Those 300 must encode for all the differences between mice and us. Is that really so hard to fathom? How many genes does it take to specify that the brain should be 300 times more complex? Or that the femur should be 300 times the size? My guess: Not bloody many!
  
• The genome has developed the technique of abstraction to an amazing degree. This is yet another parallel to computer science. Programs are pretty complex, and to manage the complexity, we introduce abstraction. Thus, the avatar next to HHH's posts has some code in common with the vertical scrollbar over on the right. And the mouse's lung looks just like yours under a microscope. The only difference is one of scale. Somewhere in your genes is a code for lung capacity of couple liters, and the  corresponding code in the mouse's genome says "a half teaspoon". The codes that implement the lung itself don't have to be different, and friend, my money is on 'bloody identical.'

Tissue specificity -- why don't breasts grow on knees? Scientists already know how to modify mouse genes to create a strain in which some gene expresses only in mammary tissue. One common technique is to attach a gene to the whey acidic protien (WAP) gene promotor, and the result is a gene that is only activated during lactation. There are other known genes and similar techniques for activating a gene at puberty and limiting its expression to mammary tissue. It is, of course, possible to make non-specific changes, but the problem is specifity is manageable.

I think the problem is in not knowing enough. We have the whole genome mapped, but all that means is that we know how 'human' is spelled using the letters A, T, G, and C. We need knowledge of the signalling pathways. We don't want to mess with the swtiches that make a cell immortal, or make cells multiply out of control. We want to adjust the parameters that specify how much fat to deposit in the mammary stroma, and how strong to make the supporting connective tissue (I like big, FIRM boobs, myself). How does the gland know how big it's supposed to be? Has to be a similar machanism to the one that says "two breasts, between the 2nd and 7th ribs" instead of "four glands fused together and placed on the abdomen near the hind legs" (moo!). Now we're talking morphology.

Speaking of... There is evidence that a person's physical structure and dimension before puberty and during adolescence is as completely and explicitly encoded as that of maturity. Did you know that a baby chimpanzee's skull resembles a human adult's more closely than an adult chimpanzee's?

Anyway, I saw more ideas in this thread that I wanted to address, but they will have to wait. I'm in danger of realizing the pointless ramblings that FlashBigger is always so afraid of committing. (No worries, dude. You always make sense to me.)