[extropy-chat] humans on mars?

[Robert Bradbury]

On 12/25/06, spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> humanity knows no limits in its pursuit of nature's secrets and is
> succeeding even in deciphering the marvelous codes of the human genome.
>
> [Wooohooo!]


Reading it and understanding it are two very different things.  We will not
really be able to lay claim to understanding it until we can from scratch
assemble one that produces humans of equal or better quality.  At that point
we will of course have transcended our creator.

As a side note, I seem to recall glancing at a paper over the last year that
the folks at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) who are sequencing
genomes on a regular basis were estimating that they were encountering on
the order of 5 new (novel) genes (proteins) per genome sequenced.  If that
number remains unchanged (the phase space for proteins is *very* large) then
we've got millions of unknown proteins scattered throughout the species
whose genomes have yet to be sequenced (tens of thousands of animal species,
millions of bacteria, insects, plants, etc.).  Enough to keep us busy for
quite some time.

Robert
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