[ExI] dna bank

[spike at rainier66.com]

Polymerase Chain Reaction allows us to duplicate a strand of DNA arbitrarily many times, then we can chemically infer its structure.  It is not clear to the public that current technology does not read every base pair in a DNA strand, but only infers it after several generations of PCR.

 

We have long spoken of creating a human archive of DNA somehow.  Old DNA is of enormous value to archaeologists and anthropologists, so the rare case where it is preserved is a priceless jewel.

 

It occurred to me while at a fund-raiser last weekend that very few people carry currency anymore.  Even fundraisers use those portable credit card readers.  But paper currency would be an excellent DNA bank if it has been circulated.  We know that paper currency is made of cotton and flax, but that wouldn’t matter if we had the technology to find individual human skin cells on the currency.  We could use well-circulated paper money as a low-cost human DNA bank.

 

spike

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20211003/89212764/attachment.htm>