These are excellent links! very interesting stuff! Thanks!
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Using an ancient bacterial immune system is very interesting! I think the Tenet aspect of CRSPR is in good hands with what we would like to do with it.
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Thanks Astro! 
Palindromes in action
I mentioned palindromes being present in CRISPR and in RNA switches. I just wish to add a sound picture as example, which when listened to reveal a lot of palindrome character.
Wind of North by Mahmod Hamasi
A lot of the small subsections of piece caries either pure palindromes (few) or close to palindromes (most). There is even palindrome likeness across some of the larger sections. The beauty of the piece comes both from the underlaying palindrome pattern and the intentional slightly breaking of it.
Palindromes are a known feature of music.
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Thanks Eli for taking the time to put this post together, very much appreciated.
Np AndrewKae, glad to be of help.
An additional comment on palindromes. Cynwulf has put together a beautiful palindromic puzzle demonstrating a palindromic switch in action. Here is a link:
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Thx Machinelves, also for your beautiful contributions.
Might be a bit controversial, but sci-hub basically makes paywalls irrelevant
Targeting superbugs with CRISPR and viruses
Mat shared a video on CRISPR with me, that I find very interesting.
Mat shared yet an interesting CRISPR video with me.
The strange world of medicine making
The 90/10 gap was a term made to highlight an observed fundamental injustice in how medical funding were distributed. That 90% of the funding in medical research, goes to 10% of the medical problems. Plus the problems that tended to get most attention were the ones that affected rich people more.
In other words, there are done more research in baldness, than in tuberculosis. Hair is a nice thing to have, but life is too. :)
There are medical problems receiving even less attention than the big killers, like tuberculosis and malaria. Diseases that only a few people around the world have.
I read an article about a girl with a really rare disease, and her fight for getting attention to the disease.
The Girl Who Turned to Bone by Carl Zimmer
This is also a story about how uncovering the workings of a rare disease, may end up providing the key to solve more common medical problems.
Sat in on a talk recently where Josh Rosenthal explained the RNA editing process of Cephalopods.
An enzyme will, sometimes, change an A to an I ( which is recognized as a G) when DNA is transcribed (not sure if this is the correct term) to RNA.
An A is fairly stable (only pairs with U). A G can pair with a U or a C.
I’m wondering if this might set up a switch when Adenosine is replaced with Inosine.
Now I’m curious what switches the enzyme. Curiosity, it never ends:)
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The strange world of medicine making 2
I touched on The true cost of medicine before. Here comes a different angle.
Sometimes when people are sick with a rare disease, the problem is not that there is no drug that will help. The problem is rather the pricetag of the drug.
The strange world of medicine making 3
I sometimes gets asked about what difference our work at eterna has made. Some of you thinking that what you have contributed may not have mattered at all.
So why does it taking so much time before we see results of our work?
There are a bunch of different reasons.
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There is waiting from lab design to lab results.
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We are trying things that hasn’t always been tried before. That goes for the scientists and their equipment too.
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It also has to do with what we have been toying with up till we got the TB labs, are mainly in the basic research department.
Basic research is different to applied research. In applied research one knows what question one wanted answered. But in basic research one is playing more around, not necessarily knowing beforehand what one is going to find out.
I have found a fine video that explains basic research and why it is important.
The super power we hold through the Eterna game, is the power to find out stuff. Either if it is by accident or on purpose. It really doesn’t matter.
Put your ideas in play in the lab. Use your lab slots!
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Alternative problem solving
I saw some wonderful news the other day. About a doctor who saw a big problem, kept thinking about it and eventually came up with an alternative solution.
This doctor didn’t wait around for others to solve the problem for him. He did something.
How a shampoo bottle is saving young lives
Here in EteRNA we are players coming from all walks of life. We are not doctors. (At least most of us are not) We are not the normally approved and vetted option for solving medical problems. Yet we have got a real shot at solving some serious problems.
We are working right now to put better tools in the hands of researchers, doctors and healthcare personal in the future. It won’t happen tomorrow, and that is what can sometimes be really frustrating from a player perspective. We want things happening preferably here and now. But as I have tried show with some of the posts above, things in relation to medicine takes time. A lot of time.
Some of the results of what we are doing now, it make take 2, 5 or 10 years down the road for us to see the results of. However what I am in no doubt about is that one day what we are doing in EteRNA is going to save lives. We are the alternative solution.
So hang in there!
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One fun fact I saw today - it’s possible to sample the air for DNA from an animal even when the animal is far away. People hope to use this technology to detect rare animals without disturbing their habitats. Read more at this short summary or the full scientific article (which appears to be open access).
Additionally, I’d like to recommend the Nature Briefing (which is where I found this story) for anyone who likes casually staying up-to-date with science news. They tend to cover a wide variety of topics, but they do it in such a way that the main points are pretty accesssible.
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Just saw this RNA-world-related publication featured in my Nature Briefing newsletter - will be reading it as soon as I get the chance! I’m very curious what it says.
Summary: Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support
Full article (open access): A prebiotically plausible scenario of an RNA–peptide world | Nature