All I know about the genome thing

by Jack Stapleton, Jr.

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to keeping up with whatever happens to be the Technology of the Moment, I confess to being among the most deprived, not to mention most confused. To be perfectly frank, I’m still trying to learn the ins and outs of speed dialing. This involves pushing several keys on my telephone and then striking just the right doodad to send the number I’m calling up on a lighted dashboard, or whatever that gizmo at the top of the console is called.

I guess you don’t need additional proof that I qualify, in spades, as a scientific illiterate, a certified techno dumbo.

I might just as well admit that when I feel I have speed dialing under control, my next assignment will be the word processor. I have now been operating one for several years. But the finer, more scientific points I clearly lack the ability to comprehend or utilize. I know from the 324 page instruction book I receive with each W.P. that there are many features of the machine that, if I had the smarts to use, would make life easier, more sanguine than at present.

I figure that if I can live to be 87 years old (which is different than feeling as if I’m 87 years old as I now do on many mornings), I will know, and quite possibly be able to use, many word processor features such as “T Set” and L Ind” and “M Code.” I know each would be helpful. But after years of using the machine, the most frequently punched button is “HELP.” That I understand, if only because I need a lot of it. When I read the instructions, I feel as if I’m conversing with a Tibetan monk who speaks a foreign language that sounds like a New Yorker on speed.

In recent days I’ve been trying to understand something called the Genome-Sequencing Project. The more I read about this phenomenally scientific breakthrough, the less I understand. I have read each and every word about it in all three of the country’s weekly news magazines: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Scientific American and Playboy. The latter was no more informative than Time or Newsweek.

I gather that somewhere out there, there are 3.1 billion biochemical “letters” of human DNA. These constitute some sort of a code that makes our all-too-human bodies function. It seems some of this decoding has already been accomplished. As soon as computers spill out the remaining unknowns, scientists will have all the knowledge needed to predict how long we’ll live, how we’ll die and from what ailment or disease.

Now all of this is obviously good news. It isn’t every day that the President of the Untied States makes a special announcement about it (the last one occurring when he told a breathlessly expectant nation that “I did not have sex with that woman”). It seems obvious that the Genome, whatever it is, is just as important to America as Monica Lewinsky’s slightly stained dress.

I wish there was more I could tell you about this Genome thing. But as near as I can determine, it affects our genetic makeup by controlling our genes, which is something else our scientists know a great deal about – except how many each of us has. Some suspect we have as few as 28,000 and others say we may have as many as 140,000. The most recent word I have from the lab is that right now many believe the number is more like 50,000. I’m surprised one of Bill’s impeachment attorneys didn’t throw around these numbers, which might have explained why he did what he did. (“Mr. Speaker: the President was simply unable to resist as many as 140,000 genes that drove him to distraction, an event that transpired before we had any knowledge of the vast number of Genome letters out there somewhere.”)

Before writing this, I tried calling someone at the Human Genome Project, which is a program in the U.S. Department of Energy. But my speed dialer went dead. That’s probably just as well since the DOE has been under fire recently for throwing our nuclear secrets out with the trash and has overseen the recent hike in gas prices.

I figure even a techno dumbo doesn’t have much to learn from those idiots.

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