<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered)">
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Arial Unicode MS";
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@Arial Unicode MS";
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
h2
{margin-right:0in;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-weight:bold;}
h5
{margin-right:0in;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-weight:bold;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{margin-right:0in;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle19
{font-family:Arial;
color:navy;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
/* List Definitions */
ol
{margin-bottom:0in;}
ul
{margin-bottom:0in;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue id="role_body" bottomMargin=7
leftmargin=7 topmargin=7 rightMargin=7>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>This fabulous bit of science is very
evocative.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>My best guess is that such “pattern
memory”—while some of it could be stored in cytosol elements,
etc.,--is most likely stored in the vast unexplored territories of “junk”
DNA—perhaps in fragments of genes, pseudogenes, etc., with non-gene RNA
elements acting as controls, inhibitors, etc.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Could be wrong, but this sort of
reconstructive memory does seem essential to life.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Best!</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Greg</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'> </span></font></p>
<div>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1>
</span></font></div>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
HowlBloom@aol.com [mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com] <br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Thursday, March 31, 2005
7:31 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> paleopsych@paleopsych.org;
kurakin1970@yandex.ru; ursus@earthlink.net; paul.werbos@verizon.net<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: From Eshel--A Glitch
in Genetic-centrism</span></font></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>re: </span></font></p>
<table class=MsoNormalTable border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>
<tr>
<td valign=top style='padding:0in 0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal><img width=199 height=47
src="cid:image001.gif@01C53698.75DFD760" align=left alt="The New York Times"
u1:shapes="_x0000_s1026" DATASIZE=2614><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch-emailtools09-nyt5&ad=pf_millions.gif&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fmillions%2Findex%5Fnyt%2Ehtml%20"
target="_blank"><span></a></font><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch-emailtools09-nyt5&ad=pf_millions.gif&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fmillions%2Findex%5Fnyt%2Ehtml%20"
target="_blank"><img border=0 width=200 height=31
src="cid:image002.gif@01C53698.75DFD760" align=left vspace=10
u1:shapes="_x0000_s1027" DATASIZE=1968></a><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&camp=foxsearch-emailtools09-nyt5&ad=pf_millions.gif&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fmillions%2Findex%5Fnyt%2Ehtml%20"
target="_blank"></a><br clear=all>
</span></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>A mechanism central to Jeff Hawkins' analysis of the
way brains work in his On Intelligence may provide a clue to the manner in
which plants with copies of a damaged gene from both their father and their
mother manage to "recover" or reconstruct something they never
had-- a flawless copy of the gene they've received only in damaged form.</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Hawkins brings up a neural network trick called
auto-associative memory. Here's his description of how it works:</span></font></p>
</div>
<blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'> "Instead of only passing information forward...auto-associative
memories fed the output of each neuron back into the input.... When a
pattern of activity was imposed on the artificial neurons, they formed a
memory of this pattern. ...To retrieve a pattern stored in such a memory, you
must provide the pattern you want to retrieve. ....The most important
property is that you don't have to have the entire pattern you want to
retrieve in order to retrieve it. You might have only part of the
pattern, or you might have a somewhat messed-up pattern. The
auto-associative memory can retrieve the correct pattern, as it was
originally stored, even though you start with a messy version of it. It
would be like going to the grocer with half eaten brown bananas and getting
whole green bananas in return. ...Second, unlike mist neural networks, an
auto-associative memory can be designed to store sequences of patterns, or
temporal patterns. This feature is accomplished by adding time delay to
the feedback. ...I might feed in the first few notes of 'Twinkle, Twinkle
Little Star' and the memory returns the whole song. When presented with
part of the sequence, the memory can recall the rest." (Jeff
Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee. On Intelligence. New York: Times
Books, 2004: pp 46-47.)</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Where would such auto-associative circuits exist in
a plant cell? Here are some wild guesses:</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>In the entire cell, including its membrane, its
cytoplasm, its organelles, its metabolic processes, and its
genome;</span></font></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Or in the entire cell and its context within
the plant, including the sort of input and output it gets from the cells
around it, the signals that tell it where and want it is supposed to be
in the plant's development and ongoing roles.</span></font></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>Howard</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>re:</span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<div class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=1 width="100%" align=left>
</span></font></div>
</div>
<h5><b><font size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>New York Times</span></font></b></h5>
<h5><b><font size=2 face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>March 23, 2005</span></font></b></h5>
<h2><b><font size=5 face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed
Gene</span></font></b></h2>
<p class=MsoNormal><strong><b><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>By </span></font></b></strong><strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman"><a
href="http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=NICHOLAS%20WADE&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=NICHOLAS%20WADE&inline=nyt-per"
title="More Articles by Nicholas Wade"><font size=2 color="#000066"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;color:#000066'>NICHOLAS WADE</span></font></a></font></b></strong><strong><b><font
size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'> </span></font></b></strong><br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<table class=MsoNormalTable border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 align=right>
<tr>
<td style='padding:0in 0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'> </span></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><img width=11 height=33
src="cid:image003.gif@01C53698.75DFD760" align=left alt=I
u1:shapes="_x0000_s1028" DATASIZE=392><font face="Arial Unicode MS"><span
style='font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>n a startling discovery, geneticists
at Purdue University say they have found plants that possess a corrected
version of a defective gene inherited from both their parents, as if some
handy backup copy with the right version had been made in the grandparents'
generation or earlier. </span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>The
finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of
their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity. If confirmed, it
would represent an unprecedented exception to the laws of inheritance discovered
by Gregor Mendel in the 19th century. Equally surprising, the cryptic genome
appears not to be made of DNA, the standard hereditary material. </span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>The
discovery also raises interesting biological questions - including whether it
gets in the way of evolution, which depends on mutations changing an organism
rather than being put right by a backup system.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>"It
looks like a marvelous discovery," said Dr. Elliott Meyerowitz, a plant
geneticist at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. David Haig, an evolutionary
biologist at Harvard, described the finding as "a really strange and
unexpected result," which would be important if the observation holds up
and applies widely in nature. </span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>The
result, reported online yesterday in the journal Nature by Dr. Robert E.
Pruitt, Dr. Susan J. Lolle and colleagues at Purdue, has been found in a
single species, the mustardlike plant called arabidopsis that is the standard
laboratory organism of plant geneticists. But there are hints that the same
mechanism may occur in people, according to a commentary by Dr. Detlef Weigel
of the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. Dr. Weigel describes the Purdue work as "a spectacular discovery."</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>The
finding grew out of a research project started three years ago in which Dr.
Pruitt and Dr. Lolle were trying to understand the genes that control the
plant's outer skin, or cuticle. As part of the project, they were studying
plants with a mutated gene that made the plant's petals and other floral
organs clump together. Because each of the plant's two copies of the gene
were in mutated form, they had virtually no chance of having normal
offspring.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>But
up to 10 percent of the plants' offspring kept reverting to normal. Various
rare events can make this happen, but none involve altering the actual
sequence of DNA units in the gene. Yet when the researchers analyzed the
mutated gene, known as hothead, they found it had changed, with the mutated
DNA units being changed back to normal form.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>"That
was the moment when it was a complete shock," Dr. Pruitt said.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>A
mutated gene can be put right by various mechanisms that are already known,
but all require a correct copy of the gene to be available to serve as the
template. The Purdue team scanned the DNA of the entire arabidopsis genome
for a second, cryptic copy of the hothead gene but could find none.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>Dr.
Pruitt and his colleagues argue that a correct template must exist, but
because it is not in the form of DNA, it probably exists as RNA, DNA's close
chemical cousin. RNA performs many important roles in the cell, and is the
hereditary material of some viruses. But it is less stable than DNA, and so
has been regarded as unsuitable for preserving the genetic information of
higher organisms.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>Dr.
Pruitt said he favored the idea that there is an RNA backup copy for the
entire genome, not just the hothead gene, and that it might be set in motion
when the plant was under stress, as is the case with those having mutated
hothead genes. </span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>He
and other experts said it was possible that an entire RNA backup copy of the
genome could exist without being detected, especially since there has been no
reason until now to look for it.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>Scientific
journals often take months or years to get comfortable with articles
presenting novel ideas. But Nature accepted the paper within six weeks of
receiving it. Dr. Christopher Surridge, a biology editor at Nature, said the
finding had been discussed at scientific conferences for quite a while, with
people saying it was impossible and proposing alternative explanations. But
the authors had checked all these out and disposed of them, Dr. Surridge
said. </span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>As
for their proposal of a backup RNA genome, "that is very much a hypothesis,
and basically the least mad hypothesis for how this might be working,"
Dr. Surridge said.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>Dr.
Haig, the evolutionary biologist, said that the finding was fascinating but
that it was too early to try to interpret it. He noted that if there was a cryptic
template, it ought to be more resistant to mutation than the DNA it helps
correct. Yet it is hard to make this case for RNA, which accumulates many
more errors than DNA when it is copied by the cell.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>He
said that the mechanism, if confirmed, would be an unprecedented exception to
Mendel's laws of inheritance, since the DNA sequence itself is changed.
Imprinting, an odd feature of inheritance of which Dr. Haig is a leading
student, involves inherited changes to the way certain genes are activated, not
to the genes themselves.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>The
finding poses a puzzle for evolutionary theory because it corrects mutations,
which evolution depends on as generators of novelty. Dr. Meyerowitz said he
did not see this posing any problem for evolution because it seems to happen
only rarely. "What keeps Darwinian evolution intact is that this only
happens when there is something wrong," Dr. Surridge said.</span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
face="Arial Unicode MS"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"'>The
finding could undercut a leading theory of why sex is necessary. Some
biologists say sex is needed to discard the mutations, almost all of them
bad, that steadily accumulate on the genome. People inherit half of their
genes from each parent, which allows the half left on the cutting room floor
to carry away many bad mutations. Dr. Pruitt said the backup genome could be particularly
useful for self-fertilizing plants, as arabidopsis is, since it could help
avoid the adverse effects of inbreeding. It might also operate in the curious
organisms known as bdelloid rotifers that are renowned for not having had sex
for millions of years, an abstinence that would be expected to seriously
threaten their Darwinian fitness.</span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=2
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:10.0pt'>Dr. Pruitt said it was
not yet known if other organisms besides arabidopsis could possess the backup
system. Colleagues had been quite receptive to the idea because
"biologists have gotten used to the unexpected," he said, referring
to a spate of novel mechanisms that have recently come to light, several
involving RNA.</span></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'> </span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=black face=Arial FAMILY=SANSSERIF
PTSIZE=10><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>----------<br>
Howard Bloom<br>
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the
21st Century<br>
Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core
Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute<br>
www.howardbloom.net<br>
www.bigbangtango.net<br>
Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of
Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big
Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society,
Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:
Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.<br>
For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
www.paleopsych.org<br>
for two chapters from <br>
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<br>
For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang
to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net</span></font></p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>