"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
Indeed, and I wish you well with your illness.

Thanks. The disease is diabetes, and the symptom that is particularly
debilitating is the neuropathy that comes with it. This nueropathy
generally results in altered sensation: temperature extremes are often not
felt (and since they're not felt, it is easy to receive even third degree
burns without knowing it), and physical damage is often not felt (which is
why diabetics frequently lose limbs - they've stepped on broken glass or a
mail or something, and the resulting would got sufficiently badly infected
that gangrene sets in leading to the loss of the limb if detected early
enough to prevent death), and finally, if often produces phantom pain in
which it feels like you're enfuring the worst imaginable tortures and yet
there is no corresponding injury. And then, of course, there ae all the
other diseases, such as kidney disease, heart disease, &.c for which
diabetics are quite vulnerable. There isn't an organ in the body that isn't
at risk because of diabetes. Low blood sugar can lead to a coma, while high
blood sugar levels does plenty of damage to all organs in the body.

While insulin and medications like metformin, and a couple others, are
useful in controlling blood sugar levels, there is nothing that can be done
for the neuropathy that I believe to be both safe and effective.

And diabetes will become an ever increasing problem since the incidence of
it in north america is increasing (not too surprising since the single
largest factor in its onset appears to be stress).

The worst day above
:-)

This can be taken two more ways (both being logically valid, given implied
assumptions).

1) The worst day in heaven is better than the best day on earth.
2) The worst day on earth is better than the best day in hell.

Cheers,

Ted

Ted Byers wrote:

Interesting. I wonder if they could have rejuvenated the cell Dolly was
made from, before it began to divide, by turning back on. If so, would it
turn itself off again at the right time, or would an intervention be
required to turn it off later? Or is an exprimental manipulation to
lengthen the telomeres without turning on the gene (perhaps be extracting
the genetic material, manipulating it and then putting it back)?



I'd wager that somebody is working on something similar. I don't
really know what is going on in the cloning world. I do know it isn't
quite as simple as just resetting telomere length. DNA damage and
(perhaps) the accumulation of damage in long lived proteins play a role
as well. Interestingly, this doesn't really apply to orchids, which
are effectively immortal. Or if it does, the meristematic region of an
orchid would be the equivalent of an eternally young tissue. It is
interesting to consider what mechanism could allow a plant to continue
to grow forever, but limits the age of animals.

Nope! But then, those who fear death would likely want it examined in
animals to see if the problems associated with turning telomerase on can be
avoided, in an effort to prolong life. Through my own chronic illness (no
safe, effective treatment and uncontrollable pain: less than a 50% chance of
living to age 65 according to the latest stats I've seen), I have learned
not only not to fear death but to see it as a welcome friend. What good is
a prolonged life if you don't have your health?


Indeed, and I wish you well with your illness. The worst day above
the ground is better than the best below it... I'm reasonably confident
there will be ways to prolong quality life in the very near future.
There already have been substantial advances in lifespan and quality of
life, just in the last 50 years or so. By quality I mean active and
healthy. So if people could be as active at 80 as they are at 60, that
would be a substantial improvement, even if total lifespan didn't
increase. Prolonging life is no good, if that extra time is spent in
hospital. This will end up really changing our social structure, of
course, and I don't know if we are ready for it yet. We'll probably all
need to work until 80 anyway, just to pay off the U.S. deficit.

--
Rob's Rules: http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit

Wow, out of control software... Not sure how that last one ended up
getting sent three times. Guess it was a spectacularly good post!!

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit

"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
Wow, out of control software... Not sure how that last one ended up
getting sent three times. Guess it was a spectacularly good post!!

Evidence of ghosts in the machine! ;-) ;-)

Cheers,

Ted

"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
Indeed, and I wish you well with your illness.

Thanks. The disease is diabetes, and the symptom that is particularly
debilitating is the neuropathy that comes with it. This nueropathy
generally results in altered sensation: temperature extremes are often not
felt (and since they're not felt, it is easy to receive even third degree
burns without knowing it), and physical damage is often not felt (which is
why diabetics frequently lose limbs - they've stepped on broken glass or a
mail or something, and the resulting would got sufficiently badly infected
that gangrene sets in leading to the loss of the limb if detected early
enough to prevent death), and finally, if often produces phantom pain in
which it feels like you're enfuring the worst imaginable tortures and yet
there is no corresponding injury. And then, of course, there ae all the
other diseases, such as kidney disease, heart disease, &.c for which
diabetics are quite vulnerable. There isn't an organ in the body that isn't
at risk because of diabetes. Low blood sugar can lead to a coma, while high
blood sugar levels does plenty of damage to all organs in the body.

While insulin and medications like metformin, and a couple others, are
useful in controlling blood sugar levels, there is nothing that can be done
for the neuropathy that I believe to be both safe and effective.

And diabetes will become an ever increasing problem since the incidence of
it in north america is increasing (not too surprising since the single
largest factor in its onset appears to be stress).

The worst day above
:-)

This can be taken two more ways (both being logically valid, given implied
assumptions).

1) The worst day in heaven is better than the best day on earth.
2) The worst day on earth is better than the best day in hell.

Cheers,

Ted

Must be the telomeres.
Tom
Walnut Creek, CA, USA
(To reply by e-mail, remove APPENDIX)

From: Rob Halgren
Organization: Michigan State University
Reply-To: Newsgroups: rec.gardens.orchids
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 11:52:45 -0500
Subject: wild to cultivated changes?

Wow, out of control software... Not sure how that last one ended up
getting sent three times. Guess it was a spectacularly good post!!

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit

Rob,

I have been thinking about one of Al's questions. Are we going to find a
orchid gene which causes the sex parts to form into a column? At first I
was thinking why not, there is a single gene which cause the human ear lob
to connect or dangle. But the more I think about it, the less likely I
think it is that simple. I seek mutants. I have seen orchids flowers with
no column, I have seen flowers with multiple columns. I have seen columns
with no sex parts. I have seen columns with multiple sex parts (2 and 3
sets of pollen on a single column). I have seen some pretty funky shaped
columns. But I have never seen a mutant orchid where the male and female
parts were not making a column. If the column was the result of just a
gene, wouldn't a mutant most likely be out there?

Pat

I am including in this message snippets from a few other messages to tie
another current thread in rgo to this one. My question, does this mean that
the skilled taxonomists at Kew are not as skilled after all or were too busy
and made an incredible mistake, or does it mean after all that it is
sometimes really difficult to tell that something is an orchid if it is not
flowering?

Thanks,
Joanna

piece of most recent message in another thread (with subject "Rare orchid
grows under Kew's nose":
Reka" wrote in message
...
"The biggest problem is that orchids can only be identified when they are
flowering - otherwise one green leaf looks pretty much like another," said
Dr David Roberts, Kew's orchid expert and the man who discovered their
oversight.

"When we received the plant as seeds it was incorrectly identified, so it
took us a while to get round to checking whether it was actually what we
were told it was."

pieces of this thread that I am tying this into (the messages below were
posted earlier then the one above):
"J Fortuna" wrote in message
...
I think I read somewhere that orchids
are mainly or only identifiable as orchids because of the flowers, and
so I
am thinking that there could be a plant species out there that would be
an
orchid if only it did flower but it never does.

"Rob Halgren" wrote in message
...
To the other part of the question, if something is derived from an
orchid, but doesn't flower, it is still an orchid. Heck, I have many
plants that don't flower, and may never flower, but they are orchids.
In the jungle, we might not ever notice those plants, so they may not
get described. But chances are good that a skilled taxonomist could
recognise a plant as an orchid by its vegetative characteristics.

"Al" wrote in message
om...
For the masses of us, orchids are 'mainly' identified by specific
flower parts that other flowering plants don't have, i.e. the column
and by the arrangement of petals and sepals and that odd
petal-turned-lip-or-pouch thingy. However, the seed is very different
and probably unique to the family and so is the recently germinated
baby plant; before the embyro develops leaves, roots or stems, it
makes something called a protocorm, (which may be stem tissue for all
I know). If you gave me a sufficiently large bit of pollen from a
plant I would probably be able to tell if it came from an orchid.
It's that unique. Pollen from the slipper group would probably prove
my undoing. Maybe.

On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 15:39:39 GMT, "J Fortuna"
wrote:

I am including in this message snippets from a few other messages to tie
another current thread in rgo to this one. My question, does this mean that
the skilled taxonomists at Kew are not as skilled after all or were too busy
and made an incredible mistake, or does it mean after all that it is
sometimes really difficult to tell that something is an orchid if it is not
flowering?

Thanks,
Joanna



I will not touch most of your questions with a 10 foot pole....
But I did notice that they were under the impression that they
had an identification on the plant. It was only when it got
challenged that they looked close enough to find that the seed
was not properly labeled when they received it.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/albums.php

Pat,

Thanks for this info. I have been following this thread closely, though I
only understand some of it, but I wish I understood all!

One thought occurred to me after reading your statement:
If there is a protein that is in all flowers and only in flower tissue, we
could find
the gene associated with this protein and all flowering plants would have
this gene in their DNA. Problem is a non flowering plant could also have
this gene, but never turn it on.
So does this mean that there could be a plant somewhere out there that is
currently a non-flowering, purely-leafy plant, but if a descendent of this
plant turned on the flowering gene it might actually flower, and we might
get a completely new orchid species? I think I read somewhere that orchids
are mainly or only identifiable as orchids because of the flowers, and so I
am thinking that there could be a plant species out there that would be an
orchid if only it did flower but it never does.

Does this make sense, or should I just go back to open-mouthed lurker status
on the continuation of this fascinating thread?

Thanks,
Joanna

"Pat Brennan" wrote in message
...
Al, I hope the head ache is a little better and this does not make it much
worst. If this does, just remember I'm a farmer who is out of date (while
writing this I am referring to a book coauthered by Watson) and has
forgotten most of what I learned about this sort of stuff.

That being said, I think you are thinking on much to simple of terms. I
think it is a mistake to think in terms of flower templates just as I
would
not call a complex computer program a template. The making of a flower is
more a process with genes being turned on and off at different times and
the
various proteins produced interacting with each other.

A gene is a template for a protein. There is DNA transcription to RNA
which
is translated into a protein or an enzyme (which is itself a proteins).
At
the underclass level each gene is a template for a unique protein. If
there
is a protein that is in all flowers and only in flower tissue, we could
find
the gene associated with this protein and all flowering plants would have
this gene in their DNA. Problem is a non flowering plant could also have
this gene, but never turn it on.

A flower is probably composed of 100's of proteins (50 to 1000 is a good
guess, I do not know if counts have been made). To make a flower these
proteins must be made at the right time, in the right mix, and at the
right
place. I do not think anyone really has a grasp on how this is all
controlled, but I think people have played with gene precursors to affect
the number of petals produced on a flower.

When you are working in the lab with a piece of undifferentiated tissue,
one
hormone will cause it to grow into a plant while another will cause it to
grow into a flower. I think this fits into this discussion, but I am not
sure how or why.


Pat B

Pat Brennan wrote:

Hi Joanna,

If you look at a plant's DNA only a small percent will actually be part of a
gene and thus only a small percent is used in the coding for protein. If you
look at a chromosome (a DNA strand) it looks something like:

. . . "tr a s h" . precursor . gene . " t r a s h" . precursor .
gene. . . .



Actually, in plants it looks more like this:
"trash".precursor.part1ofgene.junk.part2ofgene.jun k.part3ofgene.junk".
There is a whole lot of nothin' that breaks up the actual coding parts
of a lot of genes. Those are called introns, and I don't know that
anybody knows what they are for, either. Bacteria don't have them and
they get along just fine.

About ten years ago (I am very out of date) I attended a seminar discussing
this "trash" DNA. (If they can not explain it, it must be trash --ha) One
theory was tied to evolution where some of the trash contained coding used
by ancient ancestors and no longer used. The same theory speculated that
coding that will be used in some future evolved generation is sitting in the
trash waiting to be turned on. Thus if a flowering plant evolved into a non
flowering plant, the non flowering plant could still carry the coding for a
protein required in a flower.



That was a theory at one point, and there may still be some validity
in it. Now it appears that the 'trash' DNA isn't old coding sequence.
Or at least most of it isn't. There are things called pseudogenes which
are copies of old genes which are no longer functional, presumably you
could get a back mutation in a pseudogene to make it functional again,
although I haven't seen any reports of that. But the vast majority of
the 'filler' DNA is pretty random 'noise', repeats, telomeres and
centromeres, etc. It could be that the filler DNA is structural in some
fashion, and that has been pretty well demonstrated for a percentage of
it. It could be that this 'filler' DNA is involved in gene regulation
somehow, at long distances. It could just be space to move in, allowing
chromosomes to recombine with less chance of disrupting a necessary
gene. It is a field which needs more study, that is for sure. I am
pretty convinced that this 'trash' DNA is not really trash, we just
don't understand it yet.

I do not think it is very likely some non flowering species is going to
evolve into an orchid. In an evolutionary time scale, I expect new orchid
species will result from current orchid species adapting to new niches and
global changes.




By definition, if it isn't an orchid already, it won't evolve into
one. Our concept of taxonomy requires that related organisms be
derived from a common ancestor. The degree of relationship is dependent
on the distance to the common ancestor. For example, two species within
the same genus have a fairly recent common ancestor, whereas Cattleya
labiata and Den. speciosum share a more distant ancestor. Cattleyas and
roses share an even more distant ancestor.... etc. There are instances
of different groups of plants evolving similar characteristics in
response to a common environmental condition, that is really another
beast entirely. But even two very similar plants, if they don't share a
common ancestor, cannot be put in the same taxon. Now, you might ask
how do we _know_ that they share a common ancestor? That is a whole
other box o' rocks. And mistakes have been made, of course. This is a
good place for the contribution of molecular phylogeny (using DNA
sequence instead of, or in addition to, physical characteristics).

To the other part of the question, if something is derived from an
orchid, but doesn't flower, it is still an orchid. Heck, I have many
plants that don't flower, and may never flower, but they are orchids.
In the jungle, we might not ever notice those plants, so they may not
get described. But chances are good that a skilled taxonomist could
recognise a plant as an orchid by its vegetative characteristics. I'm
pretty sure there are some orchid species described which haven't been
reported to flower, perhaps some of the 'jewel' orchids? If it can
propagate well vegetatively, it won't need to flower. Anyway, if a
critical gene for flowering has been silenced by a mutation, there is a
finite chance it will get turned back on in a subsequent generation.
Not a very good chance, but a chance.

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit