Scientists Debate Magical DNA Teleportation

[ike42]

"They then go about their business of copying this ghost-DNA, producing a real copy of the teleported genetic information."


This is what makes it impossible. Enzymes are very much like tiny machines. They interact physically with molecules which is what makes them work. They cannot activate unless they have the correct substrate because this causes a conformational change which activates them. It's a nice thought, but if this guy is right it upsets everything we know about protein function.

 

[Something Amyss]

It's not teleportation per say, it's more akin to sending somone a copy of a file over the internet.

Still cool none the less.

They mean like transporters in Star Trek. That's already sort of like sending a copy of a file over the internet.

Or magic. Magic works.

Execpt those transporters pick you apart atom by atom, essietnaly killinf you and producing a copy somewhere else, wheras this keeps you alive while making the copy.

The major difference being that they destroy the original, which is hardly a large enoug hdifference to quibble over.

 

[Caylus]

Angnor:
Just a thought, while I agree with your conclusion that the most likely explanation is contamination, I think you have their conclusion slightly wrong.

I wasn't talking about their conclusion, I was talking about this piece of the article: (courtesy of L. Montagnier et al.)

Spoiler

The story started ten years ago when one of us (L.M.) studied the strange behaviour of a small
bacterium, a frequent companion of HIV, Mycoplasma pirum, and like HIV a lover of human
lymphocytes. L.M. was trying to separate the bacterium, which is about 300 nm in size, from
viral particles whose size is about 120 nm by filtration using filters of 100 nm and 20 nm.
Starting with pure cultures of the bacterium on lymphocytes, the filtrates were indeed sterile
for the bacterium when cultured on a rich cellular medium, SP4. Polymerase chain reaction
(PCR) and nested PCR, based on primers derived from a gene of M. pirum which had been
previously cloned and sequenced, adhesin, were negative in the filtrate. However, when the
filtrate was incubated with human lymphocytes, (previously controlled for not being infected
with the mycoplasma) the mycoplasma with all its characteristics was regularly recovered! Then
the question was raised: what kind of information was transmitted in the aqueous filtrate? It
was the beginning of a long lasting investigation bearing on the physical properties of DNA in
water. Indeed, a new property of M. pirum DNA was found: the emission of low frequency
waves in some water dilutions of the filtrate, soon extended to other bacterial and viral DNAs.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

[Flauros]

Ah, the homeopathic community has been spreading this one around like wildfire. Proof that plain water can have quantum physic SUPER REMEDIES that...dont actually do anything.

At first, noone was even sure it was written by him. It was unresearched, badly tested, and looked like a rough draft and then was published in some random peer review paper. Not sure if it was a good one or not....

Everyone calls bullshit.

But....

Remember gaia theory? How information is stored in the electromagnetic field, like a giant earth INTERNET?

yeah, that was bullshit too

but the mystic in me....starts daydreaming....

 

[Silva]

I really don't want to sound pretentious, but as someone who works with DNA I find it extremely difficult to believe that DNA was replicated using water as a template. It raises a lot of questions that I'm sure will come up in peer review. I could be mistaken, but it appears that this has been submitted for publication, but not actually accepted and published. I would wait and see where this article ends up before taking it too seriously.

It's taken seriously due to the Nobel prize, otherwise it wouldn't be news. At least not yet.

However, in this case I think the news values system, used by reporters to decide what's worth reporting, has failed miserably. It's just too early to report on this possibility. A lot of nutty stuff does come before the review process, it's what makes it through that, that should be important.

 

[Treblaine]

All I can say is "prove it"

Poor scientists dream of ideas. Great scientists dream of proofs.

Publish an experiment proving this effect would be far more interesting.

Well, I disagree with your use of the word proof. Unless you're a person who thinks mathematicians are wicked.

But mathematicians DO worth with proofs

 

[Ranorak]

To prove this, Montagnier sealed 2 test tubes away from the earth's magnetic field, one containing a 100 base long strand of DNA, and one containing pure water. He proceeded to do a bunch of science things I don't understand, but essentially he put them in a copper coil and applied an electromagnetic field of 7 hertz to the two tubes. He then ran the contents of the tubes through a polymerase chain reaction, which basically is an enzyme that copies DNA. The DNA string was found in both tubes.

Like I said, magic.

That.... or just contamination of the 100bp DNA sequence into the "water" cup.
PCR is done with a Polymerase enzyme. It needs to bind on DNA in order to replicate it. It can't bind on water that just has the same electromagnetic properties. It needs a actual single strand of DNA.

The odds are waaaay more likely that he just contaminated his water vial.

 

[Tharwen]

I won't trust it until it's published and verified.

It's still a nice idea, and bodies have an irritating habit of doing things previously thought impossible.

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

It's not teleportation per say, it's more akin to sending somone a copy of a file over the internet.

Still cool none the less.

It seems more like sending a e-mail on wireless internet rather than telephoning to me...

Sending information faster than light speed is basically wat quantum teleportation comes down to. One takes two entagled particles (which, after forming can be miles apart), then force a spin state on one of the particles and the other will take on the opposite spin state.

OT: though I do not know as much about the physical properties of DNA strands, but as it is described in the article (poorly, I might add), this teleportation technique doesn't have much to do with quantum teleportation as I know it. Until I can read the report, I'd say he botched up somewhere.

 

[deleted_scifidownbeat]

DELETED

 

[Catalyst6]

Uh, buh, what?

This sounds like something that someone who tangentially knows what DNA is but has never actually studied it would come up with.

This "theory" features multiple assumptions.
A. The water can be imprinted on to determine which base is attached at the site.
B. The water forms ordered chains, which allows for the sequence to be copied in the correct order.
C. The water can synthesize the backbone and bases required to perform synthesis.

I mention C because I assume that the "a polymerase chain reaction" is the same one I'm familiar with, which (to drastically simplify) basically takes half of a DNA strand and matches bases. The problem is that that reaction is unable to occur unless there is already a backbone and bases to bind to, which implies that the water was not only able to copy the DNA but was also able to form the relatively complex sugars and phosphates that make up the backbone.

That's assuming that the necessary materials were introduced in addition to the materials needed for the reaction. It he just dumped the reaction's stuff in the water then we are talking about literal magic here.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

The term "teleportation" is utterly meaningless in real science. What they layman calls teleportation can usually be described by one of two phenomenon of the quantum world: tunneling and entanglement. In the former, a particle capable of passing through a barrier of greater energy than the particle possesses. In the latter, two particles are connected and are able to communicate instantaneously.
To the best of my knowledge, neither one is applicable here, although there is a chance of it happening via a different mechanism. At any rate, this article was horribly written. Please leave scientific reporting to experts, most of whom are only too happy to "dumb" the language down for the layperson to understand.

 

[Plurralbles]

I immediately thought of "The Prestige"

fucking yes.

 

[Yomandude]

Plasmids.
'Nuff said.
OT: That stupid What The Bleep Do We Know movie had something like this, and I don't know if it's hippie science or the real deal. I'll have to take a close look at this story... dot dot dot...

 

[OlegK]

It is a little similar.
But will be some time non-reproducible

http://eng.wavegenetic.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=1

http://www.hydrogen2oxygen.net/dna-phantom-effect-quantum-effects-on-space-and-time/

 

[Dana22]

The Nobel Prize Committee must feel really silly right now.