How many unique people does dna support?

[amdhunter]

So many lives have died at the palm of my hand...

 

[Scotteq]

How many unique people does dna support?

I read the math presented earlier in this thread, and have come to the conclusion: "All Of Them".

 

[TheInternet1980]

0.1% = 0.1*0.01 = 1e-3.

Implied parenthesis noob.

 

[SKORPI0]

So many lives have died at the palm of my hand...

 

[TheInternet1980]

Arguably a good thing, given the source. Imagine in 15 years, amdhunter's spawn posting on ATOT. The board would be flooded with inane threads about apple devices, yellow cars, and NYC

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

more than IPv4 and IPv6 combined

I doubt it's more than IPv6. There's enough numbers in IPv6 to give every molecule on earth it's own IP. There's enough to give every atom in all humans on earth it's own IP.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Um, lots?

Remember, DNA is what makes spiders spiders. Is a 9 foot tall human still a human? What about a 20 foot tall human? What about one with 4 arms?

Point taken but, you might want to remember humanity is not defined by body shape. Else, most of ATOT wouldn't qualify.

 

[Farmer]

i doubt it's more than ipv6. There's enough numbers in ipv6 to give every molecule on earth it's own ip. There's enough to give every atom in all humans on earth it's own ip.

4^3165000 >>>>>>> 2^128

Where 2^128 is the symbol space of a 128-bit binary sequence (IPv6). If there are 3.165 million nucleotides that are variable within the human genome, that's the same cardinality as the set of all unique 6.33 million bit binary sequences. Needless to say, that's a lot bigger than 128.

 

[zinfamous]

let's see, ~25k genes in the human genome, many of those are rather "standard" sure (i.e: "make human" genes), but the potential for any number of combinations among those genes is near limitless, no?

then you throw in random SNPs (many of which don't actually do anything) and the fun yet potentially devastating consequences from recombination (which is necessary).

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Infinite. Not because the number is so large we can't define it, but because DNA can literally support an infinite number of base pairs. DNA can continue to add more information without adding more complexity.

Also, whatever evolves from us will continue to think of themselves as human, so human is literally us and any more complex life derived from us. Infinite.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Point taken but, you might want to remember humanity is not defined by body shape. Else, most of ATOT wouldn't qualify.

Still not sure all do.

 

[SandEagle]

So many lives have died at the palm of my
hand...

at least they got a chance to kiss you goodbye when they landed on your face

 

[Gibsons]

n, it is safe to conclude that we won't be seeing any "natural clones" in the near future.

EDIT: Uhh, so its actually a lot more, since 3.1647e6 != 3164.7 million. But same idea.

But that's just looking at a genome of fixed length. Duplications and deletions aren't uncommon, and can certainly still result in something we'd all call human. VNTRs are one example.

 

[Bulk Beef]

Genetically, but one can be better in bed.

Better than two in bed?

 

[zinfamous]

at least they got a chance to kiss you goodbye when they landed on your face

that was gold, man. Though i would have left out the detail in the end. I think the inference is enough, if not more lurid:

at least they got a chance to kiss you goodbye

 

[gaidensensei]

Are you asking for genetic (allele) difference, or phenotype differences? I see no reason to care about the uniqueness in allele frequencies except for geneticists, scientists and doctors because they can link a genetic mutation/disorder or identify lineages. Other than that, there seems to be no realistic purpose to calculate off the complete human genome, and it's always changing.

If you know about the Hardy-weinberg equilibrium, it is used often along with mendelian genetics, punnet squares, for plants to determine the chances of a particular offspring. To calculate humans, we can't, because humans are never in equilibrium due to factors that constantly are changing (intermarriage, new bloodlines). Thus, we'd never know when and how to calculate allele frequencies.

Assume in 10 years, 10 people with blue eyes died and 5 people with green eyes were born, 20 with brown eyes were born. The shift in the frequency changes that number, making the ratio for potential new blue eyed individual slightly less. If they were all in equilibrium, like 10, 10, 10 for each, it's much easier to calculate.

Also, during meiosis, it's totally random due to independent assortment. For example, if there was 8 choices for one particular allele for the child, only 1 was chosen. The rest are trashed and not used.

Because physical phenotypes are what we see with our own eyes, for example two people with blue eyes won't aren't going to have the same DNA for the responsible genes. It's like two people took a photograph of the same thing, but in different locations. Maybe one camera was a centimeter away from the other one. If you opened up their jpg files in text to see the ascii code, it's completely different. No one, and there is no point to really caring for the text unless you're a scientist.

 

[SandEagle]

that was gold, man. Though i would have left out the detail in the end. I think the inference is enough, if not more lurid:

i was going to post:
at least they got to look their killer in the eye before they died