Simon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> bernard Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> >
> > This entire process has nothing to do with
> > non-coding DNA. What we have is a genetic
> coding
> > to produce a protein (a particular sequence
> of
> > amino acids encoded in the DNA). This
> particular
> > protein can fold into two (or more perhaps)
> > 3-dimensional conformations. The normal
> folded
> > conformation (call it A for ease of
> discussion)
> > and a different folded conformation-- the
> prion
> > (call it . The unusual properties of these
> prions
> > is that they can in the proper conditions
> make all
> > of conformation A convert to the prion
> > conformation B. No thing in the geneome is
> > activated, no coding or non coding DNA is
> > activated. This does not confer disease
> > resistance, in fact, prions ARE lethal
> diseases
> > ("mad cow", "Jacob-Kreutzfeld", etc).
> >
>
>
> Have you considered that although New Scientist
> may not be as highbrow as the journals you
> frequent, it may be more up to date ? You
> clearly have more specialisation in this area than
> me, I'm a generalist and like to keep up with
> quantum physics, cosmology, cognition etc etc so
> can never match a specialist. But I'd like to
> hear your response to the rest of the New
> Scientist article and the paper it references
> before I reply to that;
>
I'm going to reply to this post in pieces because I have to research some parts of it before I can do a decent job. Why do you make me work ?:-(. My point was that New Scientist and other press reports are not a substitute for reading the original article in the literature-- where claims are usually less dramatically put and usually hedged with qualifiers. You make a good point. The story reported is based on an advanced on-line publication of an article that was published in Nature on September 9. I don't have on-line access to Nature so it will have to wait until I get to the library to see the whole thing. This should also teach me a lesson about commenting on things before reading the full article or the original paper. :-) I have searhed the literature and have gotten several previous papers in full and several abstracts so that I'll be able to get some idea of what is going on.
Bernard