THANKS! TIP JAR IMPOSTOR - 2000 !!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!

SCIENCE MOMENT BY KELLY PARKS

This is a movie about a glittery high tech future and there's a lot of cool tech toys displayed. That's why, by comparison, the ridiculously low-tech method of telling human from robot by using a heart-ripper-outer machine just seems stupid.

He's a duplicate right down to his DNA?

To every atom in every DNA molecule?

I don't think so.

Nanotechnology (which will absolutely change the world in the next 20 years or so) has been picked up by lots of sci-fi screenwriters as a magical plot device that they clearly don't understand. This is not how it works.

"He's a duplicate right down to his DNA?"

SCIENCE MOMENT BY E.C.MCMULLEN JR.

Yep.

"To every atom in every DNA molecule?"

If you're making a human, he'd have to be. Those atoms are pretty dang limited, though hard to keep track of, what with up to 98% of your atoms getting replaced every year.

Y'see,

Particular Atoms can only make specific Molecules and in DNA they are in a constant state of being removed as new ones are stitched in. How often? Every single day times the number of cells in your body - not including the billions of cells your body sheds on said daily basis.

With that said, you can't substitute one type of atom or number of atoms for a different type and still have the same molecule. So we start off replicating someone with the knowledge that a human being - ALL of them - can only be made up of a set of four types of nucleotide bases: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine.

The atoms that make those molecules are also specific. They are,

The Purines,
Guanine: NH2 (2 of), N (2 of), O (one), NH (One).
Adenine: N (3 of), H2N (One), NH (One).

And the Pyrimidines.
Thymine: O (2 of), NH (2 of).
Cytosine: NH2, N, O, NH (One of each).

Add a little sugar (5 carbon atom lumps, please), a little phosphate, and in the darkness bind them with a helix ring of aromatics and hydrogen (I know I'm being Gibbs, but the energy is free!).

Viola! DNA aka Deoxyribonucleic acid or G.A.T.C.

Right down to our atoms, every human being is comprised entirely of this and nothing else: Every single one of us without exception. Just one nucleotide less than four, more than four, or different from one of those four, will result in a non-human.*

After that, it's just a matter of switching things on and off, and all anyone would need for that, is a DNA sample from the original host. Which is ridiculously easy for the enemy aliens in this story.

But audiences don't need to be lectured about any of that.

The movie makes a point in letting us know that these Alpha Centaurians (Way too openly aggressive to be Beta Centaurians) are skulking all around us, going about their nefarious biz.

Them and their Alien Logic!

So all that a sufficiently advanced alien technology would need to do (or "our" technology this time next week), is know how my specific four letters of the DNA alphabet are written out in the genetic "story" that makes my DNA print precisely my own.

They could easily do that by opportunistically attaining a sample of my DNA (and the means are many), replicate it to grow/reproduce my very own me, teach / program this twin me with an entirely different set of morals, values, whatever, and Bob's your uncle!

*I know, I know. I didn't mention RNA. Don't even get me STARTED on RNA!

This review copyright 2003 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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