BACK TO THE X FILES: “THE EHRLENMEYER
by Joseph P. Farrell
For reasons that we’ll get into presently, I decided to select the RT (Russia Today) version of the story, so, without further ado, here’s the story:
Discovery of ‘alien’ DNA hailed by scientists, raises ethical concerns
As the article states, and as any high school biology textbook would show(or, if you’re in the good ole USSA, any graduate textbook), there are four basic proteins in DNA: guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, abbreviated G,A,T,C respectively. A binds with T, and C with G, forming the four base pairs AT, TA, CG, GC. Four. That’s it. No more, no less.
Thus, back in the day, one could speculate: if one encountered some new proteins, say, Nonexistine and Frankenine, then by the nature of the case, one was dealing with something that didn’t originate here. The idea became the theme of an episode from the 1990s Sci-Fi hit, The X Files, and an episode called “The Ehrlenmeyer Flask.” Mulder and Scully manage to steal a sample of a liquid from a bio-research lab, and Scully takes the sample to be tested. The bewildered geneticist who tests the sample informs Scully that the sample contains two new and entirely unknown base pairs. Scully asks what that means, and the geneticist tells her in no uncertain terms that they didn’t originate on earth, and would perforce “have to be extraterrestrial.” Predictably, the geneticist ends up suicided the next day.
Which brings us to our RT article:
Read the rest of the article at - http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/05/back-x-files-ehrlenmeyer-flask/
by Joseph P. Farrell
For reasons that we’ll get into presently, I decided to select the RT (Russia Today) version of the story, so, without further ado, here’s the story:
Discovery of ‘alien’ DNA hailed by scientists, raises ethical concerns
As the article states, and as any high school biology textbook would show(or, if you’re in the good ole USSA, any graduate textbook), there are four basic proteins in DNA: guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, abbreviated G,A,T,C respectively. A binds with T, and C with G, forming the four base pairs AT, TA, CG, GC. Four. That’s it. No more, no less.
Thus, back in the day, one could speculate: if one encountered some new proteins, say, Nonexistine and Frankenine, then by the nature of the case, one was dealing with something that didn’t originate here. The idea became the theme of an episode from the 1990s Sci-Fi hit, The X Files, and an episode called “The Ehrlenmeyer Flask.” Mulder and Scully manage to steal a sample of a liquid from a bio-research lab, and Scully takes the sample to be tested. The bewildered geneticist who tests the sample informs Scully that the sample contains two new and entirely unknown base pairs. Scully asks what that means, and the geneticist tells her in no uncertain terms that they didn’t originate on earth, and would perforce “have to be extraterrestrial.” Predictably, the geneticist ends up suicided the next day.
Which brings us to our RT article:
“American scientists have for the first time ever made it possible for an organism to survive with artificial DNA, making it more likely new medicines can be developed, while raising ethical concerns among some advocates.
“For researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California the breakthrough, published Wednesday in the Nature science journal, was 15 years in the making.
“The announcement is so remarkable because, for billions of years, all life has been made up of DNA subunits categorized by four letters: A, T, C and G. Scientists have now added two new DNA building blocks to E. coli bugs, which then reproduced as normal with the two extra letters in their genetic code.
“The research could eventually lead to the production of completely new proteins that could be used either for medicinal purposes or industrial products. It also lends credibility to the theory that life in outer space could exist entirely without the DNA found on Earth.” (Emphasis added)Precisely…which was the point of the X Files episode.
Read the rest of the article at - http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/05/back-x-files-ehrlenmeyer-flask/
