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Maxed Out: Of Technology, Cells and Genes
February 24, 2010 |Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Good grief - I'm all of a "tizz-wozz" at the moment because so many things are going on that I don't know whether I'm coming or going. The result is that I end up running around in ever-decreasing circles shouting "Don't panic!"
So let me bring you up to date with what's going on in my small portion of the multi-universe. As you may recall, in a column a few weeks ago I waffed on about the Kindle my wife purchased for me for Christmas. Suffice it to say that I still love both of these little rascals (my wife and my Kindle).
Of course Apple's iPad came out recently, and that also looks really tasty with its full-color LCD display. But the iPad's battery only lasts "up to 10 hours," which we all know really means less than 10 hours. By comparison, my Kindle's battery allows me to read 24 hours a day for a week on a single charge, which - coupled with its small size - makes it perfect for travelling. Of course the Kindle's low-power "electronic paper" display is black-and-white, but since I'm using it only to read text that's OK. Having said this, I know that various companies are working on full-color electronic paper displays, so I may upgrade at some time in the future.
One of the electronic books I purchased and downloaded to my Kindle explains where you can go to find free books for the Kindle, which makes it a bit ironic that I paid $1.99 to discover this information. But I tell you, it was $1.99 well spent, because it's guided me to a number of interesting sites. Overall it seems that there are more than 1 million free books available for download to the Kindle. I have downloaded more than 30 free books in the last couple of weeks; the Kindle can hold around 1,500 books so I'm stockpiling them for the future like a squirrel.
Honestly, even when I'm not travelling I use my Kindle for at least 1 hour a day in the evening. Also my father-in-law was so impressed that he purchased one a couple of weeks ago, and since then he's never been seen without it.
Speaking of my father-in-law, he's really into sailing, so I loaned him my copy of Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, a story of the expedition by Thor Heyerdahl. This was back in the early 1950s when Thor came up with the theory that the Pacific islanders had not originated in Asia as most anthropologists believed. Instead, Thor decided that they had come from Peru.
So, with five companions Thor constructed a raft out of giant balsa logs and they set off drifting on the ocean currents. Everyone was convinced that they would never been seen again (not the least that none of them were sailors), but three or four months and thousands of miles later they landed on a Pacific island. This book is Thor's account of that adventure, and it's a thrilling read.
I recently discovered that Thor took a 16mm movie camera on board, and the film he took formed the basis for the Oscar-winning documentary Kon Tiki. Even better, this is still available on DVD from Amazon, so I immediately ordered a copy. As soon as it arrives, my father-in-law and I are going to get together for a beer or two and have a "men's night" watching it.
But wait, there's more, because even though I love my Kindle, I can't resist rooting through the Bargain Books sections at bookshops. Last weekend I accompanied my wife down to our local shopping super-center. When she went to the cosmetics store, I slipped away to meander my way around Barnes and Nobel where I ran across the most amazing book.
This little scamp is called A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. It has a list price of $27.50; you can get it for $11.00 on Amazon, but I picked it up for about $4.50 in the Bargain Books section at B&N.
This book is amazing. The author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz, realized that he didn't know what had happened during "The Lost Century" between the time that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492 and the Pilgrim Fathers landed in the Mayflower in 1620.
Suffice it to say that this book is a real eye-opener. I'm learning something new on every page. For example, do you know that Columbus never actually set foot on American soil? In fact, he never actually knew that America was there. The furthest he ever went on his first voyage was to Cuba and the Bahamas.
You want to know something else that blew my socks off? By the time the Mayflower landed, folks from different European countries were living in at least half of what we now regard as the 48 contiguous states. In fact, when the Pilgrims landed, they were greeted by a Native American who spoke to them in English and asked them if they happened to have any beer (he was obviously a man after my own heart). You can see how excited I am, and I've only read the first couple of chapters.
But wait, there's more. Do you recall my review of the book "Wetware: A Computer in Every Living Cell" from a previous column? If so, you may recall that this tome starts by considering how a single-cell creature, such as an amoeba, leads such a sophisticated life - how it hunts living prey; responds to light, sound, and smell; and displays complex sequences of movements - all without the benefit of a nervous system.
The book then takes us onwards and upwards through the way in which single-celled creatures can communicate with each other, to simple multi-celled creatures, all the way to mega-complex beasts like you and me (particularly me, of course [grin]). Along the way, we discover how single-cell and multi-cell entities can evolve over time, but we are always reminded that this evolution takes place over long stretches of time.
I love this stuff, which explains why I found the article "Why Genes Aren't Your Destiny" (which appeared in the January 18 issue of Time magazine) to be so incredibly amazing, because it explains how complex beasts like ourselves can evolve in as quickly as a single generation.
Here's a question for you. We all know that every cell in our body contains the same DNA, so why are individual cells (skin cells, muscle cells, nerve cells, etc.) so different? The answer is a collection of "molecular switches" called epigenetic marks that are attached to the DNA. These switches, which cause different genes to turn on or off, conceptually sit "on top" of the genome, hence the prefix "epi" meaning "above."
The point of all this is that there's long been a debate as to the relative importance of "nature versus nurture," which provides a convenient catch phrase for the roles played by heredity and environment in human development. The new field of epigenetics goes beyond this - we now know that lifestyle choices like smoking and eating too much can change our epigenetic marks, thereby affecting the way in which our genes express themselves.
More importantly, these changes in our epigenome can be passed down to our children and to their children. And how much do we really know and understand about all of this? The answer at this time is almost nothing. Remember the Human Genome Project? This effort determined that the human genome contains around 25,000 genes, and we know (or rather we don't know) just how complex this is.
Well, if we visualize the genome as a drop of water, then we can visualize the relative complexity of the epigenome as being a mug of water. Analogies are always suspect; this one is doubly so because I just made it up, but you get my drift.
Can we harness the power of epigenetics for good or will we mess things up like usual? I tell you what, you should read the full article and then let's put our heads together and ponder the possibilities (you can read the full article online at the Time website, although for some reason the online version has a slightly different title to the print version: Why Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny).
Next Time
But that's not what I called you here to talk about ... as I said, there are so many things going on at the moment that my head is spinning. For example, I am going to be in a no-holds-barred debate at the forthcoming Embedded Systems Conference in Silicon Valley in April. I'm also going to be presenting a couple of papers at the Embedded Systems Conference in India in July. Plus I have something so amazing to report that I'm bouncing off the walls in excitement, but I am bound to secrecy for a few more weeks. Watch this space!
About the Author
Clive (Max) Maxfield is the author and co-author of a number of books, including Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (An Unconventional Guide to Electronics) and How Computers Do Math featuring the pedagogical and phantasmagorical virtual DIY Calculator. To contact Max, click here.Follow I-Connect007 on Twitter here.