Two weeks ago, i was talking with Mihalis about the possibilities and challenges that DNA sequencing will bring to our society. We went on and imagined a bunch of scenarios and questions. What if your test would tell you that you are predisposed to get a certain illness? Would you want to know it? (Actually here I heard both definite yes and no’s up to now… with no’s being more numerous though :) But what if the test would tell you that you are not in danger of getting heart disease, for example? Would you do less exercising? And what if 9 years from now, a new study discoveres that you actually are in danger because of a different genetic polymorphism? And what if the analyses said that you have a very high chance of getting a fatal disease 2 years from now? Would you live different?

Would you want to know the DNA compatibility of the person you are dating? And the next natural step, the automation, will come when the matching can be applied on a large database of candidates. Would you let the system automatically pick the person you are dating based on DNA analysis? I can imagine a system where you would submit a query which would return the genomes that combined with yours would make it possible to attain certain characteristics of the relationship or the offspring (see the story linked at the end of the entry). Would you then choose intelligent kids? Or sporty? Or a combination of the two with a bit of artistic feeling? Sure, the query will return a list of persons that match your optimum, but you would have to go down on the list until you find a person for which you are the answer to their query… And then again, even if you found a match what would that mean? It would be a mere probability. Say, the system computes a 60% chance of obtaining your desired qualities in your kids, would you choose immediately? Or maybe wait a few more months, in the hope that another person would join the system and you would find a better match. But you might loose the current match while waiting for the next.

And what if you don’t want to analize your DNA? And what if somebody else does the analysis for you without you even knowing it?

Many what if’s, right?

Saturday I was on the train, reading the NY Times, and was pretty surprised to see that there are a few companies in California and one in Finland who offer sequencing services for around 1000. Now that’s a big price, and they do not sequence the entire DNA but rather analyze a few hundred thousand specific locations known to differ between genotypes and be responsible for specific physical traits and diseases. In the same time, some of the questions that i mentioned earlier already become relevant (do you want to know your predispositions to heart disease?, etc.). The price is big but it will go down while the completness of extracted info will increase.

And then, 10 years from now when more of the aforementioned questions will be relevant you will remember that you first read them on my blog :)

A nice related short fiction story: Results
A related NY Times article: My Genome, …_

From time to time there is a book that I read, or a talk that I hear which feels so right that I keep nodding and saying “yes, yes, yes”… until it hurts my neck.

The talk by prof. Barry Schwartz, on his latest book “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less”, available in the Google Talk series, is just one such case. The talk argues that, too many choices are bad because they can make you not take any action, or even if you do choose, you’ll be less satisfied with your choice. I will not even try to summarize the arguments and studies he talks about here here because the talk is much too good to be spoiled (and I think it deserves/must to be seen).

Actuallly, I always thought that there are too many blogs that want our attention. And the sad thing is that our time is mighty limited. It would be nice if every blogger would be responsible and would post things seldomly such that it does not request too much time of his readers (actually, some of the blogs that I appreciate the most are exactly this kind of rare material, which when it appears, I know it must be important. I bet if I am not the only one with has such an atitude…)

And this is where the concept of the AntiBlog comes into the picture. There are too many blogs that tell you about cool things to see, cool places to be, cool things to do (alas, exactly as this very one that you are reading!). I think there is need for people to start antiblogging, which is, to tell you which things you should not see and which things you should not download, and which places you’d better not visit. That, I think, will be the begining of a new age in the blogosphere :)

Ah, but I trust I made myself obscure.

Shackleton - although tried several times, he never reached the south pole in his life. at least once he could have made it but did not want to risk. in fact, he never lost anybody from his crew in all his trips.

Scott - set up his base camp more to the north than initially planned. he added one man more to the expedition without increasing supplies. he continued to the south pole even if he realized that he can afford no margin of error on the return trip. he died on the way back together with all the members of his crew.

Amundsen - planned throughly the expedition. studied both Shackleton’s earlier attempts and innuit techniques. got to the south pole and returned back safe with his entire crew. in fact, some of the crew even gained weight during the return trip.

by Karel Capek

A beautiful short story upon which I stumbled upon while searching the web for summer schools. It somehow reminded me of Exupery’s Little Prince - funny with deep meaning. If you ask me, the moral applies to life, research and everything : )

Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning:

“My mind clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing, which I have learened well by now: love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Wether or not he is physically present, wether or not he is still alive or not, ceases somehow to be of importance. […]

Had I known than that my wife was dead, I think I would have still given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying.”

In the afterword of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig also observes that his way of mentally perceiving his son away in another country was not fundamentally different from the way of thinking about him after he died. Although the physical existence ceased, the spiritual one was unaffected, it continued to arise the same feelings and emotions as before.

I think it is a huge challenge to live in such a way that we enrich somebody else’s life. And if we succeed, there is a chance that even after we are gone, we might still bring a smile on somebody’s face, bright somebody’s day or guide somebody’s path. To me, this is one of life’s highest possible meanings. Surely, besides, getting a PhD, but I thought that was obvious :)