Water, water everywhere...

To live all we really need to drink is water. We evolved on a planet covered, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge once put it, with ‘water, water, everywhere.’ We cannot though stomach salt water and had, in pre-modern times, to wait for the cycle that brings rain. As Coleridge also writes, there may be water everywhere, ‘nor any drop to drink.’

You may well imagine how it all went. We physiologically require water to hydrate our bodies and, like food, we were always in search of it. We competed with other animals to find reliable sources of water. We lived along rivers and mountain streams. We learnt how to trap and, in time, dam and channel water.

What is water? As you know from experience, water exists principally in three states: gas, liquid and solid. Biochemists long ago determined that it involves a hydrogen (two of those) and oxygen (one of those) molecules. Physicists say that the structure, density and temperature of the H2O molecules determine whether it comes in gas, water or ice.

Man's best friend...

The species name is Canis familiaris. It refers to our oldest companion and friend, the dog. Like us, it is classified as a eukaryote, having its genetic material stored in the nucleus of the cell. The genomes (full collection of genetic material) of two dogs, a Poodle named Shadow and a Boxer named Tasha, were sequenced in 2003 and 2004.

For genome scientists the dog is interesting because they get the same diseases we do, including cancer, heart disease and epilepsy. Dogs are also striking in their remarkable diversity in appearance and temperament. There are very small and very large ones, gentle and exceptionally vicious ones. We have of course bred them to be like that.

The politics of cloning

On a recent visit to South Africa I was fortunate enough to be given access to interview a number of high-level academics, journal editors, and science journalists on questions concerning the social and ethical implications of genomic technology in Southern Africa.  What I found surprised me.

Africa is discussing the same issues as everyone else.  Everyone, the world over, seems fascinated by the bio-safety, health, and commercial implications of genetically modified food.  And, (almost) everyone in the higher echelons of academia, the world over complains that the ‘general public’ remains misinformed, polarised, and altogether unable to grasp the science behind genetic modification.  Although these interviews could not prove it, it would appear that (nearly) everyone, the world over, is fascinated by the potential for genomic engineering to provide vaccines, diagnostics, and cures for the diseases that they are most burdened with.  The difference between these discussions, and those elsewhere, are the diseases with highest prevalence in the population and the numbers (absolute and relative) of people affected by such diseases.