Star Trek: (Pon Farr)^(Pon Farr)

I'm feeling like I was born on the wrong planet. Just feast your eyes people. Feast. Your. Eyes.

Is Spock sterile?

First things first, the Unicorn's rating for the new Star Trek movie:

Overall Scale: 4.5 out of 5 Pon Farrs

Things blow up. Kirk and Spock fight aliens. Chekov and Scotty show off their funny accents. A few space babes, but its not the same when Kirk isn't wearing a girdle. There were no debates about morality or the prime directive, maybe next time (there was too much stuff to blow up this time).

Now, for our post-movie discussion topic. Its no spoiler to say that Spock is half-Vulcan, half-Human. According to my calculations, there is only a 1.5 x 10^-22 chance that Humans and Vulcans have fully compatible chromosomes (and I am of course taking into account the common galactic origin of humanoids). This means he is likely sterile. It has not escaped our attention that this may have consequences for Pon Farr. I hope that the new Star Trek series will properly explore the angsty new Spock's conflicting urges. It would certainly be logical.

Star Trek Theme Week: TNG Identity Crisis

With the Unicorn's exclusive viewing of the new Star Trek movie only hours away (Pre-Review: its going to be awesome), the blog content explosion must continue. Today, we analyze another biology themed TNG episode: "Identity Crisis."

As Synthetic Biologists™ we know that completely rewriting the DNA of an organism is fun and anyone can do it. All you need is years of expertise and millions of dollars. In the future, any yahoo with a tricorder and a Galaxy-class starship can do the same.

On stardate 44664.5, we discover that members of Geordi LaForge's old crew abord the USS Victory are mysteriously disappearing. Upon realizing that all those disappearing were all members of a mission to an unexplored planet, Geordi and the Enterprise return to investigate (always a bad idea). They find a planet full of mysterious aliens that are invisible to the naked eye. Here's the shocking twist: some of those aliens are actually the former crew members, who got infected when they visited the planet. The aliens reproduce by a method much more efficient than sexual reproduction: infected visitors have their DNA rewritten over a number of years, and once the transformation is nigh, the infected people experience an uncontrollable urge to return to the planet. During the investigation, Geordi transforms into an alien, ditches his clothes, and runs around naked on the planet's surface. With time running out in the episode, Data decides that its time he gets involved, devises a way to detect the invisible aliens, and Dr. Crusher resets all of Geordi's DNA to its original state in time for supper.


Lessons learned about rewriting DNA:
- Why have sex when you can create an overly elaborate virus? (the aliens must have been lovelorn synthetic biologists)
- It can make you invisible (I believe that this was accomplished via GFP and the Lac promoter)
- It can induce uncontrollable urges (there's a Pon Farr joke in there somewhere)
- Its easy to do and undo (we're still working on the second part)

So there you have it. I have more thoughts on Star Trek, but its time to get in line for the new movie!

Star Trek Theme Week: TNG Genesis

The events of 47653.2 should be an example to those of us in the Synthetic Biology community. For our (presumably few) readers unfamiliar with stardates, I am referring to the tragedy that befell the Enterprise D in 2370 as she tracked a stray torpedo through the Typhon Expanse.

The story is painful to recall, even hundreds of years before it will happen. Lieutenant Barclay gets the Urodelan flu, so Dr. Crusher activates his dormant genes with a synthetic T-cell for treatment. But Dr. Crusher, getting sloppy, misinterprets her agarose gels and fucks up the T-cell transfections. So naturally the cells run amok on the Enterprise, activating the crew's secret introns and causing them to devolve into whatever weirdo animals their species evolved from. Long story short, Barclay devolves into a spider, Dr. Crusher gets sprayed with venom, Data's cat turns into an iguana for some reason, and Ensign Dern is gored by a space-crab.

Ensign Dern: Another victim of Synthetic T Cells.

So what lessons can scientists draw from this? The first lesson is obviously to avoid over-medication. As is well known, the Urodelan flu is generally mild. Even in the 24th century, fluids and bed rest are the best medicine.

Second lesson: All engineered organisms eventually escape and run amok. So what are you going to do about it when it happens? Lysine contingency? Suicide gene? Release a new organism, deadlier still, to hunt and kill the first thing? I don't have all the answers, so I'm happy to leave this thorny question to the appallingly uninformed voters.

Thirdly, what is all this iguana and spider DNA doing in the human genome? Do you want monkeys in your introns? Gross! I propose that we use Synthetic Genomics, sister-discipline of Synthetic Biology, to rewrite the human genome and eliminate all non-human DNA. This kind of thing is already working for viruses, therefore humans are the next logical step. If we can get it done by 47653.2, we may be in time to save Ensign Dern.