[tomohelix]

> RNA editing, a post-transcriptional process, allows the diversification of proteomes beyond the genomic blueprint; however it is infrequently used among animals for this purpose.

If I had written this and showed it to my PhD advisor, I would have gotten an earful about how "what do you mean by... be specific... what about...", etc. My PI was a nitpicker. Poor fools whose papers had to be edited by him...

That said, RNA splicing is perhaps the single most important RNA editing process in the entire eukaryotic world. And it is so widespread and universally conserved that you can put a human gene in a mouse and it would be spliced the same way. So I don't think RNA editing is something so rare.

[jacquesm]

They split off so long ago that the most recent common ancestor of Cephalopods and mammals is a worm that lived ~500 million years ago:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Phylogenetic-tree-depict...

That gives plenty of time for some mechanism to evolve in one of the two branches and not in the other. RNA editing may not be rare in that part of the evolutionary tree but I do wonder if it was already present in that common ancestor.

[dmix]

I love those evolutionary trees. I recently read “The Rise and Reign of Mammals” [1] and it’s so interesting to find out that all mammals, and therefore humans, evolved from what was mostly a glorified ground squirrel (my words, not his).

https://www.ucdavis.edu/curiosity/news/revealing-genome-comm...

[1] https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/steve-brusatte/the-rise...

[adolph]

So long ago organs like eyes are an example of convergent evolution.

https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.100...

[jacquesm]

Fascinating, thank you for posting that. It ate up my whole day but it was well worth it.

[adolph]

My recollection of octopus eye development comes from "Other Minds" by Peter Godfrey-Smith, which you might like. Essentially the octopus brain like organs are another evolutionary convergence.

https://www.amazon.com/Other-Minds-Octopus-Origins-Conscious...

This week's EconTalk covers a theory of self consciousness coming about only after humans had words to describe it. I wonder if likewise the brain as a physical substrate for a mind can only come about from a set of sense organs like eyes.

Jaynes' idea was that if you went back and you looked at very early historical texts--particularly for him, the Iliad--the way that characters talk about their own minds and their own drives is extremely unusual, or you might say not at all modern. . . . But, what's actually going on, given what we know about the specialization between the hemispheres of the brain, is that essentially one side of the brain, one hemisphere of the brain is really communicating to the other. And, full human consciousness had not really been established at that time.

https://www.econtalk.org/erik-hoel-on-consciousness-free-wil...

[masklinn]

I don't think that the essay refers to basic RNA splicing, but much more complex transcription templating.

If I remember correctly, cephalopods have an absolutely enormous amount of RNA editing going on, but it's so much so that their coding DNA is essentially fixed, because if any of it changes all the RNA editing falls over and they're non-viable.

[KRAKRISMOTT]

Your field's oversaturated. Not a criticism or anything but it's just the economics of supply and demand in life science. Take a look at how sloppy the papers are in machine learning. Nobody complains because results speak for themselves and barrels of cash are shoveled towards research simply because of the sheer utility.

[tomohelix]

Heh, you think there aren't sloppy papers in life science? There are guys who churn out paper weekly and no, those things aren't very impactful. I have seen plenty of crap floating around just because it has a big name attached to it at the end of a (very) long list of authors.

It is just an older field with more established "traditions" and big names that reinforce themselves over time. Regardless, I don't think it is relevant. By number, life science research is only behind the military in funding. And by utility, show me one person who does not depend on any kind of healthcare or medicine and I will show you ten people who never used machine learning products (easier to find than you think when we get out of the western hemisphere). It is banal to claim ML has more utility. It sure can make more money, but the impact on a personal level isn't comparable. Society can still function without AI but take away healthcare and you will see it goes to shit real fast.

[KRAKRISMOTT]

I am not staying that healthcare has no value, it's just that universities produce way more life science students than what the industry can take in. At most US state schools, only a fraction of biology graduates go into healthcare and biotechnology. Most end up in totally unrelated fields, not unlike art students. This is rarely the case for engineering and CS, people do move around yes but they almost always end up working in a heavily quantitative role.

[tomohelix]

> only a fraction of biology graduates go into healthcare and biotechnology. Most end up in totally unrelated fields, not unlike art students. This is rarely the case for engineering and CS

I find this ironic, given that my degrees are in engineering and now I am doing life science...

There is nothing wrong with people getting a degree in what they like and then find a job that make them happy. I do not categorize or draw conclusions based on the degree. I care more about what the person can do. Most of the time a CS graduate isn't that much different from a bioinformatics graduate. And a biomedical student isn't that different from an engineering student when we are trying to build that bioreactor...

[yread]

Writing papers is never the most utility-maximizing activity. Especially, if you're interested in cash

[Retr0]

Here RNA editing refers to more discrete changes at specific sequences like A-to-I (Adenosine-to-inosine) substitution. Splicing, capping, tailing, are common but would not be considered editing.