Yeah, it’s not like his DNA has some “revert to prior save point” setting. 
I don’t see why it’s an oxymoron, no. If something changes and then doesn’t change back, it remains changed.
The article is poorly written, because his DNA sequence was not altered, just gene expression (as Darren Garrison noted). Kelly’s pattern of gene expression changed in response to the unusual environment on ISS, and it has not completely changed back since he return to earth.
The background reason that this may be interesting is that changes in gene expression are mediated by numerous mechanisms, some of which are less transient than others. There is (wildly overhyped) evidence that under some circumstances, some epigenetic marks that mediate gene expression may even be passed on to offspring.
Yeah, when I saw that statement that seven percent of his DNA had changed, I thought I was reading the National Enquirer or something. What happened, has he changed into a cat?
Can he now turn invisible, stretch long distances, burst into flames, or be covered in orange pottery shards and be incredibly strong?
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, just like he could before he went into space. You don’t mean to tell me that you can’t do those things, do you?
In the Sci-Fi novel “Rendezvous with RAMA” it is stated that, due to solar radiation, genetic damage was a certainty, and astronauts must be sterilized. If you want children, “arrangements” must be made prior to committing to your career. :rolleyes:
No Shodan is a conservative. He’ll never change.
claps
Here is a nice “hold your horses, popular press” article.
Now that makes sense. The sentence in the article doesn’t.
Asimov may have been positing conditions that aren’t met by the current US program, such as long duration missions away from Earth orbit. He might also have been overhyping the risk for dramatic effect. Also, he might not have considered early-pregnancy genetic screening a viable route to diagnosing and treating embryos for hazardous genetic defects.
Perhaps, but consider the fact that an astronaut spends but a few minutes in space out of his entire lifetime, and only a handful of human beings have ever even done that. We simply don’t have enough data on the subject to draw any conclusions.
Two vital factors in any valid study are sample size and the duration of the study. This particular situation is sorely lacking in both.
There’s actually a Wiki article on it. We know the dose quite accurately, but as you say there’s considerable uncertainly about the relative effect of cosmic radiation vs (say) X-rays or nuclear reactors/weapons where we have a lot more data.
And, as has been pointed out already, the uncertainty concerns the probability of disease and death, not the probability of mutating into some kind of transformed human. Just as with germline mutations in evolution, mutations that have any significant effect are overwhelmingly deleterious.
Nitpick: Clarke.
Whelp, despite the good intentions of the author in trying to untangle and correct some atrocious science reporting, this whopper got through:
Bolding mine. Clearly, the “space genes” are the 40,000 new extra genes that Kelly picked up during his time on the ISS! I assume that means he’s a xenomorph now.
Only 7% changed would have to be something lots more human-like than a cat.
Humans share something like 98-99% of their DNA with the great apes.
Cats and mice have about 10% different gene sequences from humans. Doge are further away, with about 16% difference. Cattle are higher, about 20% difference. You have to get into the plants, and exotic ones, to find things that are genetically unlike humans. Even plants like the banana are still 60% common gene sequences with humans.
(And he wouldn’t “turn into a cat” – at most, such a DNA change would affect his offspring. And even tht only if they were still fertile with his wife, or she had similar genetic changes.)
That depends on what level of granularity you are looking at it. Say you have 2 genes that are 100 base pairs long–one gene is identical between the two species and one has two base pair differences. Depending on the level you are “thinking at”, the two genes represent either a 50% difference or a 1% difference. So the ambiguous phrasing “7% of DNA changed” can mean either “7% of all genes have a difference” or “7% of all base-pairs are different.”
That stuff’s easy. But can he break a hundred million in his opening weekend?