Posted by
Rob on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 4:35:14 PM
Hidden Messages within the Genetic Code
Since
ancient times, astronomers have stared up at the night sky (once
thought to be a tent canopy), hoping for clues that would allow them to
learn something about the universe. The Search for Extraterrestial
Intelligence (SETI) uses radiotelescopes to listen for signals
transmitted by intelligent alien beings. This sort of work involves
searching through a vast amount of data, hoping to find a discrete
signal in the noise.
Now we have entered the genomics era, which has lead to an entirely new
group of gazers--the sequence gazers. There is undoubtedly much to be
learned through careful analysis of sequence data, and likely, there
may be discrete signals that can be pulled out of the vast amount of
sequence. These signals, or hidden messages, are encoded by the DNA,
just waiting to be discovered. On 23 March 2004, the GenBank
nonredundant database was analyzed in hopes to discover a hidden
message. The abundances of five different combinations of proline,
histidine, alanine, glycine, and glutamate were examined in 2,707,913
sequences. As shown below, “PHAGE” was recovered much more frequently
(P<0.001) than the other combinations of amino acids tested.
PHAGE 515
PAGEH 203
PAHGE 196
PAGHE 146
HPAGE 133
Coincidence?
We think not. The chances for each of these combinations to occur is
equal. Given that, why does PHAGE occur so frequently? This simply must
be one of those occasions where a signal is decoded from all the
sequence. We truly are entering “The Age of Phage.” Phage are the most
abundant biological entities on the planet, and apparently, they are
trying to tell us something…
Rob Edwards
University of Tennessee at Memphis--Memphis, Tenn.
Mya Breibart
Forest Rohwer
San Diego State University--San Diego, Calif.
...TED winner and well known SETI personality Jill Tarter was asked whether she's considered looking at the information signal/information in DNA since it defies all current explanations.
She responded with "coding in our DNA has been considered, but not for a while. So why would wet biology be preferable to electromagnetic signals?"
I've tried to make this argument before, though it hasn't gained much
traction. Here's the parabolic storyline roughly following
Arthur C.
Clarke's "2001" and "Childhood's End" plot.
Suppose that the
SETI project was begun in the year 1880 before
Hertz
discovered electromagnetic waves and before
Marconi harnessed them for
radio. How would SETI look for alien intelligence trying to
communicate with us? Why with the telegraph of course! They'd be looking
for telegraph lines on Mars, analyzing photographs for evidence of
telegraph lines in space... IOW, we always think that our most recent
technology is the technology that aliens would use to communicate with
us, when in fact, it is the most transient part.
But now suppose that aliens have mastered quantum mechanics, and use
quantum teleportation to do their communicating. It means they can cover
the galaxy with almost zero wattage without suffering from noise, and
signals are observable the moment a civilization leaves behind the
childhood of Newtonian mechanistic marbles and understands the power of
wavefunctions and non-locality. Then the goal for SETI is building a
quantum teleportation antenna / receiver. What would it look like?
Well, it would possess a wavefunction that can be entangled with the
transmitter, as well as a consciousness that can detect and collapse the
wavefunction.
Roger Penrose thinks that the brain has just such an
entangled wavefunction that permits consciousness. Perhaps putting a lot
of brains together, e.g, an institute or global culture, will increase
the signal strength, as all the brains overlap and entangle their
wavefunctions simultaneously. Maybe the World President can decree one
hour of "thinking positive thoughts" that can be beamed across the
galaxy....
IOW, why not wetware? It's the future. EM signals are getting as stale
as telegraphy.
Now, suppose that this alien race has already contacted us, but found us
not ready for prime time. So it wanted to leave a bunch of receivers
lying around for our use when we are ready to talk. Where would it put
them? In the phage DNA of course! (Sorry Clarke, monoliths are sooo
Mesolithic.)
Now if SETI-types can swallow the idea of a "beneficent alien", as
Dawkins proposed in Stein's movie
Expelled, then it would seem a small
step to a "beneficent designer" and thence to "God". Which perhaps, is
the reason Dawkins can't make himself take the step.