Word: rna
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...paralyzing limitation for a man who can talk on for hours about his "dymaxion" concepts, geodesic domes, and practically everything else in the universe. Still, he managed. "I have not learned how or why the universe contrived to implode and intellectually code the myriadly unique, chromosomically orchestrated DNA-RNA, quadripartite moleculed, binary-paired, helically extended, and unzippingly dichotomied, regenerative symphonic jazz," he admitted^ in sesquipedalian Fullerese. In fact, "I am the most unlearned man I know." He did feel wise enough, however, to offer one small generalization: "It takes two to make a baby, but it takes God to make...
Such acceptance, to be sure, has already been earned. A 1961 W.R.D. article by McConnell's students was the first to report that memory could be inherited by one planarian from another; it started the current controversy about the role of the RNA molecule in the transfer of memory and learning. The Digest later published the first complete account of the original study of memory transfer in a higher animal, the rat. It also reported the first study of behavioral changes in plants-experiments in which the tropical mimosa was actually "taught" to change its response to specific stimuli...
...that the nerve cell is not, as had been thought, a fixed and static structure, but one that continually forms new connections and breaks up old ones while producing biochemical substances to regulate faraway organs. In the hope of stimulating this neuronal activity, he tried feeding ribonucleic acid (RNA) from yeast to memory-deficient patients in Montreal (TIME, May 18, 1962). After he moved to Albany, he cast around for a better drug and hit upon Cylert, a combination of pemoline (marketed in Europe as a stimulant since 1956) and magnesium hydroxide. The compound apparently stimulates the brain...
...methods of modifying this extraordinary system whereby we can bring forward continually the experiences of the past to modify present actions and future plans." Beyond that, he foresees the possibility of a wholly new system of medicine, based not on conventional drugs and surgery but on the RNA-mediated "memory" inside every one of the body's trillions of cells...
...responsible authority favors use of LSD without close scientific supervision. On the other hand, no responsible authority wants to stop research into the potentially vast possibilities of LSD and other "mind drugs." New substances are already forecast, notably a "smart pill," derived from RNA, to speed up the learning process; this has given rise to the slightly uneasy crack that in a few years "people won't ask you what books you're reading, but what drugs you're taking." Some of the drugs may be bubbling even now in the retorts of Dr. Hofmann...