[chapter 4][part]
[ poetic description of early evolution - likely but irrelevantly wrong]
[I have named Digilog what Sinclair calls information theory. I consider his work like Darwin and expect many theories, aspect different, but all derivations. This lets Sinclair himself contradict aspects, digilog is Sinclair information theory 2020]
The genes themselves aren’t novel. All life in the lake has these two genes. But
what makes M. superstes unique is that the gene B silencer has mutated to give it a
second function: it helps repair DNA. When the cell’s DNA breaks, the silencing
protein encoded by gene B moves from gene A to help with DNA repair, which
turns on gene A. This temporarily stops all sex and reproduction until the DNA
repair is complete.
[Fundamental to Digilog is the idea
that tight spooling of double helix DNA in parts shuts off the genes expressed there - Gene-silencing. A break is disastrous, but may be repaired by builder genes called sirutins. For this to happen, all activity of DNA is stopped, local gene part unwound [coiled tightly is same as silenced], break fixed and gene silenced again. Normally works but error manifest as aging or cancer]
[How did it happen? Stupid religionists simply see their God did it. Dumber truly animistic are intelligent design advocates who will see a watch-maker, to silence these sub genes even a plausible narrative makes sense, but not in study mode]
In future multicellular organisms, for
instance, cells that fail to pause while fixing a DNA break will almost certainly lose
genetic material. This is because DNA is pulled apart prior to cell division from
only one attachment site on the DNA, dragging the rest of the DNA with it. If
DNA is broken, part of a chromosome will be lost or duplicated. With a new type of gene silencer that repairs DNA, too, M. superstes has an
edge. It hunkers down when its DNA is damaged, then revives. It is super primed
for survival.
And that’s good, because now comes yet another assault on life. Powerful
cosmic rays from a distant solar eruption are bathing the Earth, shredding the
DNA of all the microbes in the dying lakes. The vast majority of them carry on
dividing as if nothing has happened, unaware that their genomes have been
broken and that reproducing will kill them. Unequal amounts of DNA are shared
between mother and daughter cells, causing both to malfunction. Ultimately, the
endeavor is hopeless. The cells all die, and nothing is left.
Nothing, that is, but M. superstes. For as the rays wreak their havoc, M. superstes does something unusual: thanks to the movement of protein B away
from gene A to help repair the DNA breaks, gene A switches on and the cells stop
almost everything else they are doing, turning their limited energy toward fixing
the DNA that has been broken. By virtue of its defiance of the ancient imperative
to reproduce, M. superstes has survived.
When the latest dry period ends and the lakes refill, M. superstes wakes up. Now
it can reproduce. Again and again it does so. Multiplying. Moving into new
biomes. Evolving. Creating generations upon generations of new descendants.
They are our Adam and Eve. Like Adam and Eve, we don’t know if M. superstes ever existed.
But my research over the past twenty-five years suggests that every living thing we see
around us today is a product of this great survivor, or at least a primitive organism
very much like it. The fossil record in our genes goes a long way to proving that
every living thing that shares this planet with us still carries this ancient genetic
survival circuit, in more or less the same basic form. It is there in every plant. It is
there in every fungus. It is there in every animal.
[There is something magical here. May be, we can find old DNA and recreate dinosaurs. Basic to Digilog is the idea of old backup being present in every cell, pushing its existence to pluripotent state by Yamanaka factors. All the genetic developments are there for cloning!
Missing are wombs, but some related species may provide environment needed for Adam/eve birthing.
Finding intact DNA so old may be hard unless one finds an old mosquito preserved in amber! But sabre-tooth tigers preserved in Siberia might be doable!]
[The book here becomes fascinating bottom-up research, for which you have to get it as it explains why yeast, then mice and finally human. Horvath clock uses increasing methylation for very good predictions of remaining life. Not much more re theory! Book crucial to understand why this is NOT a narrative of very advanced person but a true rational-septic who questions self and performs many experiments. The theory took 20 years even if done by 2000 AD! Every phenomenon tested and reco tested against Horvath clock!]
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