RE: What are Gene Drives, and How Can They Possibly End Marlaria, Lyme, and Virtually ALL Vector Borne Diseases?
Stay tuned for RNA World hypothesis
I wrote a post quite a while back on the RNA world hypothesis, I am a fan of Carl Woese's work. Though I never did get to meet him.
Though the function of type two restriction enzymes and homing endonucleases are the same, evidence shows that they may in fact have evolved separately.
You could really (and should) make a post discussing endonucleases, their various classes, what make them different, and possibly if you've time or knowledge their respective methylases. How bacteria utilize them (IE explain their purpose as a defense mechanism), and how they have been employed in molecular biology. Mostly as you use the terms, but I think a lot of regular people (and a lot of scientists too!) don't have a particularly good grasp on what these enzymes really are. I mean I could write a piece like that, but there is only so much time in the day, and its nice to see someone else around that might want to contribute to educating others in the same vein that I do.
Another interesting area for discussion would be to talk about transposable elements and transposases. Their is a lot more motility going on in genetic material then people perhaps realize, and more than a few sequences that like to move and shake.
just look at Nye here
It's a bummer that his show was crappy.
My final suggestion, for a post like this... CITATONS. You really need to provide people with some sort of means to read more (Especially with regards to background) on the things you are talking about. You did a nice job discussing the topics at hand, but I would suspect that most people would be fairly overwhelmed.
Gene drives are an interesting piece of molecular biology "tech" and are interesting for fast replicating things, though I am not so sure I buy your "end virtually all vector borne diseases" pitch.
In all, nice job. :D
Thanks for the feed back, I wasn't sure about citations in this form of presenting material. I am pretty new to steem. I guess it is just a good practice in general. I will most certainly add that in immediately.
Also thanks so much for the material suggestions! I was already thinking I should have done an intro to endonucleases, and maybe even human genetics. I just felt that meganucleases are moderately unknown even to most scientists. i really appreciate the feed back!
If we studied more into vector host interactions and made strains of host animals that are resistant to the colonization of a vector, I don't see it as "too" far fetched to cure most vector borne diseases. Although it is very unlikely the time and effort is going to be spent into doing such research any time soon. You also have to take into account population control as well as a result of curing all illness. VERY tricky area of research.
Yeah, it's also one of my peves with scientific writing on the internet in general. Most authors just do not provide enough bread crumbs for the reader ( and people are lazy, if you don't lay it out for them, they probably won't go find it on their own ). The presence of easily accessible cited material would give people the opportunity to really take much more away from your article.
Talking about more things from a pure genetics standpoint is something that I haven't seen anyone on here do, I wrote some VERY general background pieces on DNA/replication/protein expression/ribosomes in the past. I suppose the way you go about it depends on the audience you are targeting (keep in mind that the audience here is largely non scientists, so boiling down the concepts to be as simple and digestible as possible really aides in people taking positive information away that they could apply to future readings).
Yep, yep, and definitely yep.
I would very much enjoy bringing a geneticist's eye to the party! It is always a challenge providing enough info for those who desire depth and for those who just want a quick break down.