Genetics: Does DNA also encode mathematical values of lengths, distances and angles ?

reply to post by VneZonyDostupa


Again, thanks for the time and effort in trying to get a complex subject across and explained in a way thats readily comprehensible by those (me !) that don't have a deep grounding in the biological sciences.
The cube/spigot/colour analogy was particularly useful and helped a lot.

Finally, please don't get the impression that I'm dead set against accepting or assimilating different viewpoints and opinions as I most certainly am not. If someone comes along and presents a reasonable alternative explanation for how something happens or the underlying mechanism involved, then I'm more than prepared to take that info onboard and modify my own views accordingly .. which is certainly happening in this thread

Originally posted by tauristercus
reply to post by VneZonyDostupa

 

Again, thanks for the time and effort in trying to get a complex subject across and explained in a way thats readily comprehensible by those (me !) that don't have a deep grounding in the biological sciences.
The cube/spigot/colour analogy was particularly useful and helped a lot.

I've always loved the "cube" example =) I used that quite a bit when I was teaching.

Finally, please don't get the impression that I'm dead set against accepting or assimilating different viewpoints and opinions as I most certainly am not. If someone comes along and presents a reasonable alternative explanation for how something happens or the underlying mechanism involved, then I'm more than prepared to take that info onboard and modify my own views accordingly .. which is certainly happening in this thread

Oh, no, no, I don't think that at all. It seems you are genuinely curious, and are certainly pulling information from many sources (always a good diea) to formulate your own opinion. That's what science is all about, after all.

i see the physical body as like a glove that I'm wearing. my real body gives the physical body the template of shape.

Heya

im new here and thought id just offer my two pennies or any other form of interchangable currency.

There are a few things you have to remember about cells

Every cell has a full set of the genetic code of the particular individual... so every cell in your body has the full set of blueprints.

The DNA in the nucleus of everycell can be controlled... every encoding part of the genetic code has activation/dectivation sites, meaning that every single gene can be switched on, or off... so every gene can be expressed or not.

Cells dont react to their DNA, their genetic code (or at least most cells dont), they react to their local environment, they react to what hormones, neuroreceptors and whatever other chemicals are in the near vicinity. They have the ability to "perceive" their environment and switch their DNA on and off... so if theyre in an environment where there is no "chemical X" they wont express the genes designed to deal with "chemical X"

Cells talk to each other ... every cell releases chemical signalls telling the cells around it how to react.

So what you have during embryogenesis is a chicken and egg situation... you have a cell with the full blueprints doing as they dictate untill there are enough cells to start communicating with each other... then they start to change, one cell suddenly starts being say the skin precursor cell, and tells the other cells that its doing this, it has the monopoly and the other cells wont do the same thing. It will then make more of itself surrounding the embryo in an epithelial layer (i know this isnt quite true, but for the sake of an explanation im simplifying a lot).

So what you end up having is a group of cells reacting to the environment they have made for themselves because of the systems found within them that make them react to the environment

and ive managed to confuse myself

what im saying is DNA doesnt control what the cells do... their environment does, their environment switched the DNA segments on and off... and in embryogenesis the original environment is created from the DNA...

So fertilied egg cells have to follow a certain preordained path (determined by DNA) untill they "break free" of this template and start reacting to one another and splitting following different genetic paths ...

In a way you could look at it as sped up evolution except that all the information is already found in the cell.

Wow this is so hard to explain ... ill have to look into a better way of trying to explain this and maybe post it tomorrow

hopefully this isnt too all over the place and people understand what im trying to say.

*Great Topic BTW*

~TR