Science: Thinking About DNA

Explaining complex ideas to others is a challenge. Translating concepts from their original wording into something comprehensible by someone else is a difficult art. There is a long history of writers translating scientific concepts into layman's terms. But why stop there?

Why not take complicated and difficult ideas in one discipline and explain them in the complicated and difficult terms of another discipline? Why not let experts in one field get to understand the underlying concepts of another in their own native terminology? Especially since in some cases the underlying concepts translate pretty easily.

For example... DNA is encoded information. While it's not the "blueprint" of the human body it is information our cells carry around and use. It's instructions for the nucleus. Doesn't the term "instructions" sound close to the term "program"? Maybe, just maybe, there are ways to explain DNA and it's use in cells in terms that a computer scientist would understand.

Bert Hubert did just that in DNA seen through the eyes of a coder. Fair warning though. If you don't know about computers and information theory and a large chunk of computer technology as well as a little biology you will probably get lost. This is not meant as a slow and subtle crossing of the divide. You get dumped into the deep end and the terminology flows fast and furiously. If you do know quite a bit about computers DNA will suddenly make a lot more sense.

Bert also nails one of the issues I have with descriptions of DNA and cell division. I'm not a biologist but it always struck me that the typical description to the layman was wrong. We usually hear something like "when cells divide the DNA gets copied so that each cell has a complete set of instructions". Which is, of course, wrong.

DNA in a cell in not one copy of the instructions - it's two. DNA comprises two strands side by side. One is the opposite (or compliment) of the other. It's as if we carry around a photo of the instructions we need to run our cells as well as a copy of the negative of that photo. We carry both in each cell.

If I have a photo and a negative and I separate them then I can use the photo to create another negative and the negative to create another photo. I can take my two copies (the photo and the negative) and split them and make two sets of copies. Each set will have a photo and a negative. One of the sets will have the original photo and a new negative and the other set will have the original negative and a new photo.

DNA is roughly equivalent. Our cells carry two copies. When the cell divides the two copies are separated and each is used as a template to build its now missing opposite copy.

That long winded, and hopefully clear, description of cell division is nowhere near as succinct as Bert's computer related version:

Each DNA Helix is redundant in itself - you can see the genome as a twisted ladder whereby each spoke contains two bases - hence the word 'basepair'. If one of these bases is missing, it can be derived from the one on the other side. T always binds to A, C always to G. So, we can state that the genome is mirrored within the helix. 'RAID-1' so to speak.

See. It's can be easy to explain complicated concepts in one discipline in terms used by another discipline. Especially if the two disciplines are related.

If you are a coder, computer scientist, techie, programmer, or quite knowledgable on computer topics than DNA through the eyes of a coder will help explain the complex chemical dance of information that's taking place in your body all the time.

What is The Internet?

Wayne passed along a link that I had forgotten about. I remembered the powerful idea at the heart of the link but I had forgotten who had written it.

World of Ends: What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else by Doc Searls and David Weinberger is an explanation of how best to understand the Internet.

The Internet isn't a bunch of wires and cables and companies hooking computers together. The Internet is a set of agreements that allow people to hook networks up to each other seamlessly. The result is that for all practical purposes the Internet is the collection of all the computers attached to each other. It's the collection of computers at the outside edge of the network.

You computer, your laptop, and your cellphone are all part of the Internet.

We tend to think of the Internet as Google, and Amazon, and Blogger, and our bank, and other sites. They see the Internet as the place were all their customer's are. It turns out the Internet is both.

Maybe the best way to think of the Internet is to think of it as the place where we all meet and connect. It isn't a thing or a place. It's where all the computers and people at the ends of the network build a collective on which almost anything can happen.

If you haven't red Worlds of Ends I highly recommend it. It may change how you understand the Internet.

Science: Insight Into the Spirit of Science

It's a simple question. One we ask as children. One some of us still ask as adults.

Why is the sky blue?

Simple. Direct. To the point. There should be a simple answer. Maybe someone could just tell us why and we'd be happy.

But a really intelligent man would answer the question while taking you on a tour of why it's such an interesting questions. Pointing out simple aspects of the sky you might not have thought about. Taking you down little detours that shed light (so to speak) on many things you may not have known about. All while doing so in a manner that we can understand, appreciate, and grasp.

In December 1968 C.V. Raman delivered a lecture for the Foundation Stone-laying ceremony of the Community Science Center in Ahmebadad. The Nobel laureate gave a speech called Why the sky is blue (and a scanned pdf).

I don't know a more wonderful excursion through physics, physiology, the world of colour, some astronomy, and much much more. All in a short speech that shows how a scientific view of the world can lead to wonder, awe, and amazement. I can't imagine how one could have listened to it and not wanted dig deeper and know more about everything.

It's well worth the read.