2008.02.21 The Human Genome - Doug Wilcox with Meredith Porter

Review:

Doug Wilcox got us deep into the material with a PowerPoint presentation while Meredith Porter fielded a barrage of questions with ease and intelligence. It was all about the Human Genome. It is a really big topic even though it takes electron beams or x-rays to even see them. Scientists had known since the 1800's that DNA had something to do with heredity but what? The trouble with really good science is that the truth is usually much weirder than anyone dares imagine. But Crick and Watson, rumored to be abetted by recreational chemicals, dared to imagine that the engine of inheritance was a little (really little) double stair case or corkscrew of deoxyribonucleic acid. Its friends just call it DNA. It was an elegant solution that brought with it an automatic solution to another puzzle besides its structure: how your mom and dad got together and managed the DNA twist on a very crowded dance floor and gave the world YOU! Without this insight, we would not know details about humans leaving Africa so long ago and spreading around the globe. Yup, we are all of us born in the U.S.A. really African-Americans. Nor would we know just how many are locked up for good in prisons before some clever folks proved they could not have done the crime, all due to DNA testing. Nor would we know about the Epi-Genome, which shows finally, how that booze or cigarettes your mom quaffed could pass strange diseases down for many generations.

The evening ended with a video of Craig Venter who would qualify as a maverick genius by any standard. He warmed up his career by building a fire under the Human Genome Project and hastened its completion by several fold. Now he is building bacteria from scratch intended to make gasoline when the home-made bacteria are given carbon dioxide and sunlight. All from genes discovered in the world's oceans. Are you worried yet?