Hello.

35. Montreal.

Dr. Susan Blackmore has suggested a third terrestrial replicator called the Teme that is pretty much this idea. I’m not such a fan of the idea of Temes but it’s interesting. She discusses Temes in a speech about memes on TED.com if you’re interested.

Of course. My question is more specific. Let’s look at my third question. What is the reciever? At what point is the new entity a new entity? I’m confused about when it is that the new entity becomes a seperate entity from its parents. Are the gametes seperate entities? Is my sperm me or something I produce, like say, saliva, that is not "me". Are the gametes equal or is the egg the new entity and it’s simply fertilised by the sperm. It seems gray to me.

If genes are information that replicate selfishly as Dawkins suggests, then that information leaves the body. I’m just trying to get specific about it. I wish I had better language to discuss this with, but like I said, I’m not a biologist.

Thank you. I’m reading up on this. I cam across germ cells. Can you tell me if I’m way off the mark here?

The germ cell, through the process of mitosis and meiosis becomes the gamete. But the germ cell and all cells within the body for that matter, ALREADY have a full copy of the parent’s DNA. So the parent never transmits the information to the gamete cell, it doesn’t have to. Instead, the parent turns the gamete cell into a vehicle for the DNA to leave the body. Does that sound reasonable?

I think I can dig on the gamete being the medium. The gamete physically transports the message, the genetic information. My only question is, again, the receiver.

Yeah, this is a pretty big question for me. I can’t figure out if the mother is the reveiver, if the oocyte is the reveiver or if the uterus is the reveiver, or if there is no reveiver, that the information is essentially broadcast by either parent and when the gamtetes come together, they simply create a new entity.

I think at the very least, if I can clarify for myself how the parents get their DNA into the gametes that would go a long way.

I was also toying with the idea that ribosomes had something to do with it. Within the gamete and or zygote, where are the ribosomes? It struck me as a possibility because the ribosomes are the thing that reads the newly formed DNA, the offspring’s DNA, and follows the instructions to start making proteins. Not sure though.

The reason it sticks out for me is that the communication of information always involves an energy wave. Colour information is transmitted via electromagnetic radiation. Sound is transmitted by waves. In signal transduction there is an energy wave involved. It strikes me that all that is occurring up to the point of the two gametes coming together is "Xeroxing".

I’m thinking that the transmission occurs during transcription. Is the genetic information communicated to the RNAP? The ribosome? All the transcription factors? The transcription machinery? Are mRNA and tRNA the medium? I just don’t understand well enough.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that the communication occurs during transcription. In binary fission and with horizintal transmission, are ribosomes involved? Do eukaryotes and prokaryotes alike have ribosomes? Does transcription pretty much work the same in sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction?

Well it’s about communication. For instance puppy dogs are cute is an encoded message. I’m trying to convey ideas like puppies and cuteness and encoding that message in the sentence, "puppies are cute". I then transmit that message, in this case, via the internet. You receive it, decode it and poof, you have that info.

Genetic information, the actual instructions for making proteins is information. That information is encoded in DNA strands. What I’m trying to figure out is how is that encoded message transmitted and to who/what?

Anyhoo, I just want to say that I really appreciate all of your responses. This may seem remedial to some of you and perhaps the answer really is something simple, but I gotta say, biology isn’t just something one can pick up over the weekend. I genuinely appreciate your attempts to walk me through this.

Peace and Love and Empathy,

Matt

Thanks for the responses!

Mmmmmmm… sex 😀

Ok. The germ cell has half the DNA. Gotchya. So is it that there are existing cells, they go through mitosis and meiosis and poof, you have the germ cells? The only thing I’m trying to get at is that the body isn’t creating something from nothing. The germ cells just sort of "divide off" of existing cells. Is that right?

Here’s a question. What is the offspring? Like physically, where does it begin? At what point can you say, this thing is no longer it’s parents? When the zygote is created? When the gametes are created? Also, physically speaking, is the oocyte, this is clunky language, the body of the offspring? Like does the sperm show up with half the DNA, donate it to the oocyte and at that point the oocyte can become the new entity or physically, is the sperm a part of the new organism?

Right. It is called the expression machinery right (or it’s a part of the expression machinery)? It reads the DNA and carries out the instructions right?

So do all cells, or organisms, have ribosomes? Like, are ribosomes a universal for organisms that use DNA? That’s clunky. Like, do assexually reproducing, sexually reproducing, bacteria, viruses, retroviruses, plants, every kind of organism, have ribosomes or are there organisms that use something else entirely?

Thanks for the videos. They were cool. They gave me a headache, but they were cool 8)

Epigenetics. Cool. But the somatic cells don’t come into play until the new entity is ‘formed’ right? Like, the zygote. But zygote doesn’t apply to all organisms does it? Just sexually reproducing ones right?

That is very interesting. I don’t understand the first part about putting ‘the DNA of the oocyte and put it into a complete oocyte’.

Somatic DNA is complete DNA right? So if you take an egg, remove the DNA then put in a complete, I guess fertilised, DNA, or maybe rather the DNA from say, my somatic cells, the egg can become a new organism? And that’s what cloning is, you put the information into the physical housing of the egg, that has all of the expression machinery inside it, and the egg will use that DNA to develop. Is that right?

I’m thinking universally now. Here’s an idea. Please tear it apart. All organisms will create a ‘new’ cell (I guess a daughter cell of some type) that will contain a copy of genetic information (either a full copy or half of the DNA). In sexually reproducing organisms two cells have to come together to share information. In asexual ones, the daughter cell can do it’s own thing. With viruses, the virus transports the information into an existing cell. And with cloning, DNA is inserted into an existing cell after the initial genetic information is removed. In all cases, an actual MOLECULE is transported physically into the new cell. Is that right? Once in the new cell, the ribosomes read the information and… do their thing. They make new organisms. Whether they’re viruses, single cell organisms or multi-cellular organisms. Is that right?

An associated thought. Genetic information, in the form of a molecule, doesn’t have to leave ‘the body’, it has to leave the cell. Or in the case of say viruses, it has to enter the cell. Is that right?

Thank you again. This is all helping so much. I really appreciate it.

Peace and Love and Empathy,

Matt

Hey.

So do viruses hijack the ribosomes of infected cells for translation?

Peace and Love and Empathy,

Matt

Thank you all so much!

I really appreciate all of your answers. You have clarified this entire process for me and have allowed me to move forward with my work.

I’ve done some subsequent looking and discovered that I’m pretty much re-inventing the wheel here. There are already the fields of biocommunication and biosemiotics that look at semiochemicals. I had a "well no shit" moment when I realised that pheromones are a perfect example of a molecule that is used to transmit information. DNA is no different. It’s a semiochemical that is used to transmit a message from one cell to another. Brilliant.

Now I can say this about genetic transmission with confidence.

1 – There is genetic information.
2 – The genetic information is ENCODED in a DNA molecule.
3 – The DNA molecule is copied and the copy of the DNA molecule is TRANSMITTED from a parent cell to a daughter cell (during either mitosis, meiosis or binary fission) or from one cell to a different cell via fertilisation, infection or Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.
4 – The transmission channel depends on which form of transmission is being used. In all cases, a DNA molecule is PHYSICALLY TRANSPORTED to a RECEIVER CELL.
5 – The message is received by a RECEIVER CELL.
6 – The message is decoded by EXPRESSION MACHINERY.
7 – All steps are affected by the presence of noise.

This has all been really fantastic. This goes a long way to support my hypothesis about the nature of replicators.

Peace and Love and Empathy,

Matt