X-Message-Number: 18998 From: Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 21:55:28 EDT Subject: Odds & Ends... CryoNet: I will be going to this exhibit on The Human Genome before long here in Raleigh, NC. Might learn something, but also it is an opportunity to see how the science is being presented to the public. Don't plan to stay long on the following URLs as they appear to a little too basic for the CryoNet crew. Here they are anyway (the second was a link from the first): http://www.naturalsciences.org/exhibits/special_exhibits.html#gr http://www.amnh.org/science/genomics/research/frozen.html However, I found the following URL kind of interesting, while off-topic. I missed a particular PBS Frontline TV show I was interested in seeing, but found this article linked from their site which that show appears to have been based. I thought it was good and did learn some things from it I would have been unlikely to learn otherwise. Just scan it a bit first to see if you have any interest before getting committed to reading it. It's long. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/31BEEF.html?ei=5039&en=b8cbf1a58c88 3e80&ex=1050552000&pagewanted=all&position=bottom _________________ From yesterday's CryoNet: Mike, meaningful thoughts. Use to be through out history that a certain percentage of those who committed suicide would certainly have taken the world with them if they had had the ability. For the next few decades at least, more and more of this same percentage is going to more and more approach having that ability. Aside from that, this "dirty bomb" long-term contamination concept from cheap detonations in large cities is particularly troublesome for setting back progress and extend the former concern to many, many additional decades. Particularly precarious times we're in. George, an extraneous thought crossed my mind while reading your post. One of your sentences went as follows, for the purposes of reminding others of the post: "I suspect that when the time comes we will have a pretty good generic human DNA foundation to correct errors from." While I know the following was not the purpose of the post, I am not so sure we (i.e., any individual planning cryopreservation) should fret too much about not getting around to preserving our own DNA now for our own future purposes of having a more error-free copy. (Yes, I am aware that you have already done so.) With many trillions of copies available from the cryopreserved patient, a relatively simple computer program could compare the DNA from one's various cells and determine exactly where any abnormalities existed in any given copy, and also be provided with the right corrections based on the simplest of statistics (via the sampling of one's other copies). This would assure that you would be you. Later alterations would then be *your* choice. Just a thought. Regards, DC Johnson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18998