
Brain Cells Share Information with Virus-Like Capsules - bryanrasmussen
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/brain-cells-can-share-information-using-a-gene-that-came-from-viruses/550403/?single_page=true
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ajb
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a virus full of RNA.

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rcthompson
I guess this is the biological equivalent of mailing hard disk.

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ajb
Yup. For the benefit of anyone who didn't hear of the original quote yet:
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling
down the highway" (Andrew Tannenbaum)

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jboggan
This gets towards an answer to the question I've always posed to computer
scientists seeking to emulate brain function in a program: what is the basic
unit of memory?

When you drill down to the fundamentals of computer science you get to the
bit; all complex data is essentially a representation on top of bits. I've
always wondered what the quantum of human memory is though. What's the
smallest thing that you can remember?

I always think about this because my living memories are rich-media with sound
and sight and smell and feel. I suppose facts can be a smaller bit of memory,
but how is that actually encoded? Maybe we'll know in our lifetimes, maybe
not.

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shahbaby
How do you define memory?

If you mean, "knowledge of the past" then even the simple neural nets of today
exhibit memory when they can recognize your face.

So where does this face recognizing neural net store information about eyes,
ears, noses, etc? That information is part of the neural net but it's
distributed across all the neurons.

This type of memory system is much closer to how memory in the real brain
works.

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phkahler
But what if that's only one mechanism? What if some information is stored in
DNA or RNA? And what if that can be copied and stored in other cells too? What
if each neuron could store even kilobits of data in it's DNA? Capacity per
neuron goes up by a few orders of magnitude.

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jhedwards
Lynn Margulis was a huge proponent of the idea that speciation happens mostly
via symbiogenesis and cross-species gene transfer as opposed to natural
selection. This virus-like cell, while admittedly still not well understood,
seems like the kind of thing she would point to as an example of different
forms of life merging to create new higher-level lifeforms.

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ohtwenty
disclaimer: only read the abstract. The original paper, linked in the article
mentions the mRNA messaging. Intuitively that roughly makes sense -- other
cells might have the luxury of being able to directly talk to each other,
through physical contact or proximity, but with neurons that is made more
difficult due to the possibility of extending electric signals. So carrying
information through mRNA might work, but I wonder why mRNA? Why not skip the
middle man and go straight for proteins? What's the use of doing it this way?
ik I'm anthropomorphizing but it seems to make more sense to just send out
proteins to communicate? Or maybe mRNA allows for more finetuning on the other
end, and is a more efficient mechanism, since it can be read dozens of times,
instead of just being a handful of proteins.....

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dekhn
it's easy to encapsulate any sequence of mRNA; unless it contains extensive
tertiary, while any random sequence of protein is going to fold into an
irregular shape and probably also have some catalytic capability (such as
proteoltyic) which would degrade the protein coat.

That said, GroEL does that (encapsulates various proteins and refolds them).

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jfarlow
And a capsid might be able to store a few proteins, or a few mRNAs. But a few
mRNAs deposited into a cell could produce many thousand protiens.

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stdgy
I find biology to be endlessly fascinating. I know this is terribly off-topic
but, if you enjoy learning about this kind of information, I'd highly
recommend 'The Gene: An Intimate History.' It's a lovely read that brings you
from before Mendel up to the brink of modern genetics.

I'd like to hear any other book recommendations people may have related to
this topic.

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z3t4
I find everything not made by humans to be completely random. Given unlimited
space and eternal time everything is possible.

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seannyg
Maybe this is one reason we haven't become more resistant to viruses? Because
we actually need to use them, or something like them, to learn?

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zghst
What I read from the ya thatvwe inherited certain processes from viruses which
they use to infiltrate us, hundreds of millions of years later.

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m3kw9
Just to note, this has nothing to do with Hintons Capsule Networks

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babak_ap
Is the mechanism of 'Arc' gene related to the dynamic routing process of
Capsule networks [1, 2]?

[1]
[https://kndrck.co/posts/capsule_networks_explained/](https://kndrck.co/posts/capsule_networks_explained/)

[2] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829](https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.09829)

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make3
It has the same word in it, that's about it. Come on, use your brain a bit

