Science and Exploration

[Little Fish]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

The gene is in a fish that, if memory serves, lives under one of the ice packs either the Arctic or the Antarctic. It literally evolved a means of keeping its blood from freezing. Like you, I think that it is so amazing and I really wish there were some way to communicate so that the general public would understand that there's no 'essence of fish' that is taken out and put it into a strawberry. Rather, a specific gene that builds a very particular protein, is inserted in another organism which then can build that protein. It's the same protein. It does the same thing. A gene that codes 'for' something codes for that thing not all of the traits of the organism the sequence came from. All living things can transcribe the same DNA because the bases ACGT are the same in fish and in plants and in mammals. It is a sign of the unity of all life on this planet that the gene that says "build eyes here" is the same in the fruit fly, mice and humans.

The fact that the gene originally came from a fish wouldn't trigger a fish allergy because the DNA in the strawberry doesn't 'know' that it came from a fish. It knows that when it gets a signal to start making some protein X, it starts making that protein until some other signal tells it to stop.

Cheers
Aj

Yes. This exactly. Thanks for the reference!--pretty amazing stuff!
(I almost went into genetics *sigh*...)