[HN Gopher] Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the hu... ___________________________________________________________________ Mosquito saliva alone has profound effects on the human immune system (2018) Author : danboarder Score : 167 points Date : 2021-08-23 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (journals.plos.org) (TXT) w3m dump (journals.plos.org) | autokad wrote: | "We detected both Th1 and Th2 human immune responses, and delayed | effects on cytokine levels in the blood, and immune cell | compositions in the skin and bone marrow, up to 7 days post- | bites." | | I wonder if this could be a treatment for cytokine storms caused | by things such as the spanish flu. | gillytech wrote: | > ... mosquito and sandfly saliva have also been shown to enhance | infectivity and disease progression | | I wonder if it was mosquitos that have evolved to make disease | they are carrying more infectious or it's the pathogen that | evolved to take advantage of the mosquito's biology to make the | host more likely to become infected. Regardless this is | fascinating. | inglor_cz wrote: | On a related note: interestingly, humans can develop immunity to | _ticks_. Which means that if a tick bites them, it dies. | | https://www.caryinstitute.org/news-insights/media-coverage/h... | | Utterly fascinating. Our bodies are so much more complex than I | could have imagined. | dwighttk wrote: | Instead of a Lyme vaccine we should work on spreading this to | everyone | | (Or you know, we could do both.) | mv4 wrote: | ticks' bodies are pretty amazing to: | | https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/alpha-gal/index.html | Kenji wrote: | That's interesting. I seem to kill small mosquitoes when they | bite me. I've observed it multiple times. It lands, it bites | and it becomes completely unresponsive. Because I was drunk at | the time, I chalked it up to blood alcohol content which will | yield quite a bit of alcohol if a mosquito drinks so-and-so | many times its own body weight (I did some basic math) but | since then it also happened when I was sober. | ProjectArcturis wrote: | Even if you were at 0.5% BAC (legal driving limit is 0.08%, | and 0.5% would kill a lot of people), that's still about the | alcohol percentage in NA beer. Unlikely to have any effect. | parsecs wrote: | That's very interesting as well. Could you expand a little on | what you mean by them becoming completely unresponsive? | BurningFrog wrote: | Sounds like mosquito saliva can yield new drugs to treat immune | system problems. | personjerry wrote: | I read the abstract but it told me nothing. Could someone smarter | to me help translate? | | What are the profound effects? | | What are Th1 and Th2 responses? | | What are cytokines? | | What are immune cell compositions? | | Overall is this a good effect or a bad effect? | mcguire wrote: | The Author Summary seems to provide a more plain-English | description: | | " _Mosquito saliva proteins have numerous effects on the immune | system, and we describe here the use of mice with a humanized | immune system to study the effects of mosquito bites on human | cells. Our results show that the number of immune cell types | affected is much larger than previously described, and some | immune responses to mosquito bites can be detected up until 7 | days post-bite. The biological significance of these changes | remains to be determined, but it might explain how some | pathogens, such as viruses, can spread through the body in | these cells, replicate to higher extents, and even remain in | some tissues for far longer than detected in blood._ " | | They're using stem cells to provide mice with "humanized" | immune systems. The mosquito saliva is interacting with more | types of immune cells than previously thought and remain active | for longer than thought. The effects of these interactions is | still unknown, but may be part of how bacteria, viruses, etc. | carried by mosquitoes infect humans. | aborowie wrote: | Cytokines are signaling molecules used by the immune system, | there are around 20 of them with names like IL-4 and IL-10. The | IL stands for inter leukin (signal between white blood cells). | | T Cells start as B Cells and then graduate from Thymus school | after rigorous coursework (mainly don't target and attack | self). Most T helper cells stay as Th0 or undifferentiated. Th1 | are specialized for inter cellular pathogens (bacteria and | virus), Th2 broadly speaking are specialized for intra cellular | pathogens (helminths and parasites). | | Pathogens that have been around for a while like bacteria, | virus, helminths, and parasites have evolved to push back | against immune systems to varying degrees. | | Source "The Body" by Bill Bryson | yhoneycomb wrote: | I think it's so interesting how this guy asked pretty | rudimentary questions and got such an amazing response. I | wish the tech community could be just as nice to newcomers. | danboarder wrote: | Regarding understanding this as a good or bad effect, I think | this is still an open question and further research is needed. | My take away is that the rush to eradicating mosquitoes may | have unintended consequences as we don't fully understand how | symbiotic they are in the development of the human immune | system. | tartoran wrote: | When I was a kid I couldn't care less about mosquitoes and during | the summer most of the kids' legs and arms had mosquito bites and | deep scratches, but for some reason some kids were never bitten | regardless of where they'd hang out or sleep. | | Not sure whether it's a good thing or not but now I am extremely | cautious not to get any bites. This summer for example I avoided | the backyard almost completely for this reason, with some | exceptions when I covered myself in mosquito repellant spray. The | mosquito candles I tried last time weren't very efficient in my | case. | [deleted] | nomel wrote: | I was one of the kids that mosquitos loved. One night I counted | 30 bites on my legs/arms, where my friend had one. This stopped | after I hit 25 or so. | | This makes me assume there's some pheromone that could be | extracted from a younger me, used to lure mosquitos to their | death. | learn_more wrote: | Could also be lack of hair on your arms/legs. | jcims wrote: | There are observed biases based on blood type | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15311477/ | | I'm O negative and have always seemed to get the worst of it | when out when friends. | | I recently took up cigar smoking (yes i know) and anecdotally | have found that I don't get bit as often if I've been smoking | recently...to the point of watching someone six feet from me | get destroyed while they avoid me completely. My father-in- | law has been smoking for 50+ years and they ignore him. | notdang wrote: | They avoid you only when you smoke or in general, also when | you don't smoke? | monkeytaco wrote: | I've found these to be pretty effective. | https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PDNCMMN | NegativeLatency wrote: | Saved my ass (literally) in an outhouse in the Alaskan tundra | this summer. | gilbetron wrote: | +1 to those. I was shocked to actually have a repellent that | really worked. When I bought two years ago, I had gotten a | puppy and would work in my back yard so he and my other dog | could hang around outside, chewing and messing around. Summer | came and the mosquitoes were awful. Stick one of those under | my chair, and I'd go from 10+ bites a minute to 1 bite per | hour, if that. | wintermutestwin wrote: | It is so awesome that you have to dig into the comments to | determine that this uses metofluthrin. :-\ | djmips wrote: | Toxic to cats and bees? | pishpash wrote: | Yes, most of these are neurotoxins, at insect doses of | courses. | [deleted] | heavyset_go wrote: | You might be on to something. I got a fever and was sick for a | while after being bit by a lot of mosquitoes last year. It | could have been a coincidence, but I'm still going to try to | avoid getting weird illnesses from their bites from now on. | stamourd wrote: | The things you can learn on HN. | | "humanized mice footpads" are a thing. | echelon wrote: | Mice are one of the most effective research tools available | right now. | | Many protocols use foot injury to look for heat shock response, | immune recruitment, inflammation, etc. | | There are monoclonal lines for gene knockouts, human chimeras, | etc. to aid in certain types of study. | tmaly wrote: | What I find interesting is how I react to mosquito bites in | Southeast Asia verse how I react to bites in North America. The | difference is huge. | lossolo wrote: | Could you elaborate? | sillyquiet wrote: | Speaking anecdotally - here in central Texas, we have a few | species of mosquito, and my reaction to a bite varies from a | small bump that goes away in a day to intense swelling and | itching. And it all seemingly depends on which type of mosquito | bit me. | jmnicolas wrote: | Try heating it with a hair dryer until pain. I'm not sure for | mosquitoes but it works for me with hornets and horse flies | bites. | Vaslo wrote: | That's a great trick. I was always told to use a metal spoon | and get it as hot as you can stand it and press it the bite | as much as you can and as long as you can stand it. Never | thought about the hair dryer. | jmnicolas wrote: | The hair dryer is much more controllable, you might | severely burn yourself with the spoon (and need another | trick to relive the pain ;) | | For what it's worth my hair is so short I never owned a | hair drier until I heard about this trick. So I bought a | cheap one and it's only used in summer. | Sunspark wrote: | I just use a blue gel ice pack on the bite for 2 minutes. | wintermutestwin wrote: | This is my solution as well. I find that an intense heating | session will keep the itch at bay for up to 8 hours. | | I think the hot spoon that others have mentioned is also | worth a try as the circumference of the bite and spoon could | keep non bite areas from burning. | kennywinker wrote: | There are little infrared pens that you can get that do this | without pain, just heating the area with IR to denature the | proteins injected by the insect | currydove wrote: | Oh interesting. Any recommendations that you have? | EGreg wrote: | Please share the Amazon links! | goldenkey wrote: | Please don't act like Amazon is the only shop around. | They are a terrible shop, actively adversarial to their | merchants and customers. They are chock full of fake | reviews, they comingle inventory, and practice many dark | patterns. | | Most people think that Amazon sells all the products on | their site - because Amazon designs their site to look | like it. Even young people who are technically literate | are fooled. This results in a lot of harm.. | | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/amazons-plan- | to-... | | In actuality, eBay is more of a trustworthy marketplace | than Amazon... | willyt wrote: | I just bought something from amazon and it turns out it | was coming from a seller in another country and i had to | pay an extra PS24 in import duties and carrier charges. | Nowhere on the listing did it say it was coming from | outside the UK. | goldenkey wrote: | I am sorry to hear that. Amazon's UI is purposely | designed to make it difficult to notice this kind of | information. Buyers are lulled into a false sense of | assuredness. | | Listings are often even hijacked! | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684807 | | (And Amazon couldn't care less!) | brnt wrote: | Didn't y'all vote for having extra tariffs a while back? | bserge wrote: | Your effort is appreciated. | goldenkey wrote: | Thank you. It's difficult to oppose such a large | behemoth. | meristohm wrote: | Thanks for promoting other options. When recommending | books I use worldcat.org links rather than the more- | exploitative for-profit vendors. | | In the interest of making more art available to more | people, independent of spending-money, I'd rather us | collectively invest more in public libraries. To what | degree do public libraries fund authors? | TonyTrapp wrote: | BiteAway works well for me. | emptyfile wrote: | This stuff absolutely works, but I would call it the | opposite of painless. | a_brawling_boo wrote: | I had a handful of marks/scars that lasted for several | years on my legs after using one of these. I am sure it | depends on the brand, but please be careful using these. | tempestn wrote: | These are great. I find they are slightly | uncomfortable/painful, but only mildly so and momentarily. | Much more localized than something like a hairdryer or | spoon though. Helps with wasp stings too. | Kenji wrote: | Yes, heat works wonders. Hot water also works. Even against | bee stings. Practically no swelling and no pain within a few | minutes. | yosito wrote: | I just take a super hot shower. It works for all kinds of | itching: bug bites, poison ivy, eczema... | bserge wrote: | I just ignore it and wait. | meristohm wrote: | Doesn't hot water make skin conditions worse in the long | run? | yosito wrote: | It depends on the condition and it's cause. | ozim wrote: | How long after bite does it work? | | Usually in the woods I don't have a hair dryer with me. So | you are using it if you get bitten in the backyard or if you | get back home from the hike? | | Usually I also notice bites the next day when they start | itching or when I get evening shower unless I really slap | that mosquito in the act. | jmnicolas wrote: | The first time I heard about this method I tried one or 2 | days later after the bite and it worked, so if it's a day | hike there won't be any problem. | clipradiowallet wrote: | Depends what you take hiking with you...but I imagine at | the minimum you have a fire method(matches? lighted? flint? | etc) and metal object(pocket knife? belt knife? eating | utensil?). Those will work well in a pinch, just don't heat | it too much and have an impromptu branding session... | toss1 wrote: | Good trick - I use hot water, at hot as I can stand for both | bites and poison ivy rashes, trying to minimize exposure | beyond the affected area. Really calms it all down for hours | after the zing of the hot water. | petre wrote: | Also rubbing with salt, vinegar, 70% alcohol. Apple vinegar | helped me with a contact allergy I got after walking | through some "grass". | mayankkaizen wrote: | It does work on mosquito bite. Actually try putting anything | (tolerably) hot at the place of mosquito bite. I don't have | hair drier so I use just hot spoon. I guess this heat | treatment somehow disintegrates the chemical released by | mosquito. | | Edit: posted this comment before reading other comments so | didnt realize others have also suggested the same. | elteto wrote: | A hot spoon works too. It should not burn you though, just | hot enough to be somewhat uncomfortable. I just run hot tap | water over the spoon. | gHosts wrote: | I suspect wrong hypothesis there.... the variable is probably | what other allergen is on you skin (or finger nails) and | whether and how much you scratch it! Temperature is probably | also a factor. | Igelau wrote: | I get those reactions with one bite. If I get a lot of them I'm | fatigued for days. | hendler wrote: | Tiger mosquitos gave my son a strong reaction | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3708019/ | bserge wrote: | Same thing in Europe. | charles_f wrote: | Totally! I leave in BC, the few mosquitoes which make it into | my house despite nets usually give me big bumps that last for a | few days and scratch like hell. When I get into the deeper | woods, I get eaten alive, but these bites' effect seems to last | only a few hours. Might also be the blood pumping though, but I | do think that natural selection, even over a short variation of | geo, results in such differences | singlow wrote: | Seems like a plausible explanation but how do you have any idea | which species bit you in order to be able to draw a conclusion | that there's a correlation? | Lammy wrote: | They're pretty visible/memorable due to their white stripes: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aedes_albopictus | singlow wrote: | But do you see the mosquito that bit you most of the time, | unsmashed? Often enough to correlate? | sillyquiet wrote: | Speaking personally - not always do I notice the | mosquito. | | But I have noticed often enough to note the difference. | For me, the smaller, more stealthy mosquitos give me the | small, temporary bump, but the larger more noticeable | ones like the tiger mosquito or what we call zebra | mosquitos (I _think_ they are actually western | encephalitis mosquitos (!)) have a more dramatic | reaction. | aidenn0 wrote: | I visited my parents in the DC area, and there's been a bunch | of people developing really nasty rashes from insect bites, I | don't know if it's confirmed, but it seems to be attributed to | an oak-mite[1] | | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyemotes_herfsi | pwg wrote: | There was an article on that topic in the Washington Post at | the end of July: | | WaPo link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md- | va/2021/07/30/oak-mites... | | Archive.is link (no paywall): https://archive.is/AEi6a | [deleted] | 01100011 wrote: | My wife has 'skeeter syndrome' and the bites vary from normal | mosquito bites to 3-4" wide, weeping bumps depending on where | we were at when she got bit. Hawaii was the worst. WA state | wasn't too bad. | wil421 wrote: | We have some in Georgia but I don't think there are as many | species as Texas. | | A mosquito has never left a mark or made me itch in my life. | Poison ivy on the other hand...I could look at it and get a | rash but not the go to the doctor rash. | [deleted] | jokoon wrote: | Of all the place i get bit, the ankle is the worst and most | sensitive place, and I always get rash and scars. | KoftaBob wrote: | This is actually the main idea behind the "Bug Bite Thing" | product I came across recently. It acts as a suction tube to | remove mosquito saliva from the bite and therefore minimize the | immune inflammation at the site. | | Naturally, as soon as it came in the mail, I have yet to get a | mosquito bite since. | morsch wrote: | So you're saying it works as a preventative, as well. | ivoras wrote: | One of the few things which can reliably fuck up brains are | (auto)immune events. | | It would be impossible to collect the data but I would LOVE to | see how longevity and mental faculty correlate with | attractiveness to mosquitoes. | amelius wrote: | Perhaps you could start by comparing longevity and mental | faculty between countries with/without large amounts of | mosquitoes. | yourapostasy wrote: | It would be quite ironic if The Great Filter turned out to be the | xeno equivalent of mosquitoes spreading some unstoppable virus. | Or if mosquito saliva contains the proteins(s) to unlock some | medical breakthrough like some immune system stimulant that | obsoletes antibiotics, or cryo-sleep. I try to keep those | possibilities in mind whenever I get carried away with my | fantasies of an _anopheles_ genetic bomb, but durnit, those bites | do have a convincing way about them to persuade one to a "kill | 'em all" disposition. Thanks for the paper, it was a very neat | read. | jcims wrote: | Agreed. It boggles my mind that people are willing to just | assume that all of the unknowns balance in our favor when it | comes to wiping out mosquitoes. How many species has the human | immune system had to adapt to more than mosquitoes? Yes they | kill a lot of people, but its entirely possible that by | normalizing the immune response against wide swaths of the | planet they save a lot more. | fezzez wrote: | Mosquitos are the closest thing to a predator that we have. | They're by far the animal that kills the most humans (outside of | other humans), and it's been that way for at least 10s of | thousands of years. | | We already know that billions of humans have genetic mutations | that specifically are there to protect us from mosquitos. So I'm | not surprised that mosquitos have specific adaptations made for | us either. | dcolkitt wrote: | Imagine if dirty needles started flying around randomly targeting | children. It constantly shocks me that mosquito eradication is | controversial, let alone not one of the highest priorities of | society. | wintermutestwin wrote: | It seems like eradication is a blunt instrument approach to the | problem. We know that some people are much more likely to get | bit. How can it be so hard to determine the differing factor?? | To your point (and ignoring the extreme solution), why have we | not put the requisite energy towards solving this problem? | fguerraz wrote: | OMG children! Therefore we must do something. | droopyEyelids wrote: | Ok.. do something, do something... how about we use cutting | edge genetic modification technology to eliminate categories | of life from the biosphere? Then afterwards we can talk about | ethical implications and deal with unexpected consequences as | the technology proliferates | asddubs wrote: | we've accidentally killed so many species, can't we just do | this one single one on purpose | timonoko wrote: | I remember sitting in Kautokeino bus with an older Sami man. | Dozens of mosquitoes just sat on his forehead just waiting for | something edible. I was only semi-edible with DEET. But an | Italian couple was totally. It was incredible to watch, I wish I | had a camera. Blood bath and genocide. | eitland wrote: | There is a joke about mosquitoes in Northern Norway that goes | like this: | | Two mosquitoes caught a soldier and one asked the other: should | we eat him here or bring back home? To which the other mosquito | answer: No, lets eat him here lest we want one of the big | mosquitoes come and take him. | | Source: close friend who served next to the Russian border. | | I was south in Troms and down there they were so small we could | easily kill them with a shovel or something ;-) | cinbun8 wrote: | We found the gpt-3 everyone | riffic wrote: | it makes perfect sense to me. | ask_b123 wrote: | I'm not sure why the comment is dead, but I also don't | really understand the comment. Could you explain it please? | timonoko wrote: | I was trying to point out that Mosquito saliva produces | somekind of deterrent and antigen. It takes only few | bites and days to adapt with suitable genetic background. | But Italians were offended and it turned into flame war. | riffic wrote: | I vouched your comment. I don't know why stuff needs to | be downvoted to oblivion around here. HN voters, stop it | and stop being so damn fickle. | thatguy0900 wrote: | He's giving an anecdote. Mosquitos would land on a native | man but not bite him. Some mosquitos bit him(timonoko) | but he had DEET on so not many did. An Italian couple got | very badly bitten and spent the trip trying to slap and | genocide all of the mosquitos. | nawgz wrote: | I mostly agree, there is an omission of "edible" after | "totally" that makes it read confusingly. However, I find | the last sentence - "blood bath and genocide" - to be very | out of place, to the point where invoking "genocide" to | talk about some mosquitos getting swatted feels quite | inappropriate. | nitrogen wrote: | Wouldn't the reverse reading make more sense, that the | mosquitoes were creating a blood bath? And when did | colorful metaphors become anathema? | riffic wrote: | it's metaphoric. Language can be used outside of its | typical idiomatic expression. | ineedasername wrote: | We really seem to know extraordinarily little about how our | bodies work apart from physical mechanics & electrical activity. | I can't even put a % on the rest except that we have barely | scratched the surface. From epigenetics to the brain, metabolism, | and immune system, we have a long way to go. | | On the other hand, we've probably made more progress in that | understanding during the past 100 years than in all of the time | before that. So, if our rate of knowledge acquisition is | increasing, maybe that upward hill isn't quite so steep. | jes wrote: | I was having a discussion with a friend yesterday and we got | onto the topic of vaccinations. | | To my knowledge, while we can develop a statistical assessment | of a vaccine's safety, we can never know how the vaccine will | affect a specific person that takes it. My argument here is | that the human body is so fantastically complex that no two | cases are ever the same, and so the only way to know how a | vaccine will affect a person is to run the experiment, by | having them take it. | | I think this is one attribute of what are called "Wicked | Problems": The only way to know if a change is going to be an | improvement or not is to make the change and see how the system | state evolves forward in time. | | Is this roughly correct? | skulk wrote: | It points to an interesting gap in discourse around vaccines. | | One side (the mainstream) claims vaccines are effective and | safe. The other side, claims that no, we do not in fact know | that the vaccine is safe and therefore you should not get it | and take your chances with the disease. | | The problem is that we don't in fact know that the vaccines | are truly safe for everyone, because mRNA technology (while | incredible) is new, but from my personal interactions I've | observed that most intelligent people see that getting the | vaccine increases your expected quality of life given you've | never had COVID before. However, those who don't believe this | will take any claim made by the mainstream (vaccines are | safe) as evidence that they are hiding something, further | deepening their suspicions. | | This is a feedback loop; the more people that refuse the | vaccine, the more the mainstream will push for more | vaccinations, causing more people to refuse the vaccine. All | because the nuance of "we don't know that this is as safe as | taking a walk in the sun, but we have solid evidence that it | improves your E[QOL]" isn't easy to communicate. | endgame wrote: | More precisely, "the other side" claims that we do not in | fact know the vaccine is safe, and points to all the other | times "the mainstream" side lied to us as reasons to be | skeptical: the US Surgeon-General told us "masks don't | work", lying to manage supply, now they're critical; Biden | said "get vaccinated, or wear a mask until you do", now the | masks are going back on; Kamala Harris said she wouldn't | take a Trump vaccine, now there's a big fight over mandates | and passports; Fauci kept dangling a vaccine target just | beyond what the country was tracking towards (there are | articles where he's quoted as saying "I can nudge this up a | bit"); Cuomo was hailed as some great leader despite | sending covid-positive people into old people's homes (it | was his sexual misconduct that finally sunk him). | | Hesitancy around covid vaccines isn't the antivax of the | previous generation, and responding as if it was won't help | anything. Actually having an honest conversation with the | public that you're more likely better off with a vaccine is | not an easy concept to communicate (as you correctly point | out), but it would be a good first step in trying to | rebuild that lost trust. | Cort3z wrote: | With this reasoning you can't know if drinking water is good | for you without drinking it, so bringing vaccines into the | mix has nothing to do with it. | ineedasername wrote: | We have a very bare minimum of knowledge for individual | treatment, but only in a very few cases. There are genetic | markers known, for example, to impact metabolism of specific | medications, and there are tests (Genesight) to find out your | own profile. So there is some _very_ minimal progress on that | front. It 's a start towards personalized treatments, but we | don't always know _why_ a specific genetic marker doesn 't | work the same way or why an enzyme has such a large impact on | things. | dd36 wrote: | Evolution says hi. | | I like Kevin Kelly's technium concept. We are merely an | extension of evolution and our purpose is to continue it, | which we do willingly and unwillingly. | teekert wrote: | Not really, we can test a drug on a large population and | determine it to be effective on 5% of all people. With no | further info you know you have about a 5% chance of getting | better. With more research we may determine that for people | with a specific variant in their DNA the succes rate is 60%, | so you can be part of two groups. We can keep making it | better, maybe never 100% but very from "a gamble". | | Would you say that hopping on a plane is an experiment in | testing if it will crash? When you know it very likely will | not? | amelius wrote: | Things can really speed up once we have robots that grow cells | and perform experiments on them, and collect (big) data and | automatically analyze the data. | asdff wrote: | People already can grow up billions of cells for experiments | and use supercomputers to process terabytes of sequencing | data with statistical modelling. The hard part isn't the | scale, but designing experiments and figuring out what | evidence is needed to answer specific biological questions. | That stuff you can't speed up with robotic arms and more | processor cores, it takes time for people to think about | these things and have conversations with others about these | topics. | EamonnMR wrote: | Not to mention the amount of time experiments take-suppose | we want to know if a drug prevents an illness that takes | decades to develop? Sure you can model it in a mouse, but | to do that you need to know exactly what the parameters of | your model are. | amelius wrote: | I'm not so sure about that. For example, with robots you | can run "for GENE in GENOME do ..." For humans even | thinking about what that statement does is a lot of work | already! | mythrwy wrote: | It's not a one dimensional problem though. There is a lot | of interaction between the various systems in a human | body. | | To keep with the programming analogy, ya, you can see the | SUM statement and that is necessary to understand, but | what is it for? What is it's role in the larger program? | Where do it's inputs come from? Where do they go? What | effect does changing it have in other places? | | I do agree our knowledge of genetics etc. will be much | expanded soon. But we'll probably also make some nasty | errors. | amelius wrote: | > There is a lot of interaction between the various | systems in a human body. | | Yes, the interactions are the interesting bit. Perhaps we | can figure out the biological pathways at the cellular | level by taking a systematic approach of turning genes | on/off and turning their expression on/off, then looking | at the expression of other genes. This is exactly what | could be done by robots. | ezconnect wrote: | The problem is how do we sense and measure them. Once we | invent the methods of sensing, measuring and observing a | single process we need a million more for the other process | and that takes time. | amelius wrote: | There are various techniques for that. For example with | RNAseq you can measure which genes are expressed as a | result of an experiment. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-23 23:00 UTC)