DrDNA

Have you tried brushing your teeth and scraping your tongue? Works for me............... I'm guessing that you drank vodka last night?

From Wikipedia: "Isopropyl alcohol is produced by combining water and propylene.[1] There are two processes for achieving this: indirect hydration (sulfuric acid process) and direct hydration. The former process, which can use low quality propylene, predominates in the USA while the latter process, which requires high-purity propylene, is more commonly used in Europe. These processes give predominantely isopropyl alcohol rather than propan-1-ol because the addition of water (or sulfuric acid) to propylene follows Markovnikov's rule."

I realize that this was posted months but I just saw it... Actually, I think that you guys may be trying to make it more difficult than it really is. Esterification generally makes a molecule more volatile compared to it's charged (acidic) counterpart. Therefore, esters are more likely to be detected by receptors in the olfactory system. Perhaps this is what was meant by "smell better" = better or easier to smell?

I think that the answer to your question lies in another: is there an evolutionary or survival benefit to removing "junk DNA" or leaving the "junk DNA" intact? I believe that there is no advantage to removing unused DNA unless it might be harmful for some reason (in which case the organism might be less fit and die). But having extra DNA around which can provide a template for nonlethal modifications (evolution) often provides an advantage to the organism. Also, much of what was called "junk DNA" in the past has turned out to not be junk at all, and useful. BTW: I think that it is interesting that software programmers do much the same thing with old code. Other than remove it, they leave it in (but turn it off) and write new code around it. For example, MS Word is filled with generations of old code that is no longer used.

In theory it might be considered possible, but in practice, probably not. First of all, one would need to clearly define all of discrete components of "human milk" (which is a VERY complex mixture of diverse components) and locate and clone ALL of the genes that go into making "human milk"- including all of the genes for the various structural proteins, enzymes, hormones, fatty acids, cofactors, etc. It is a relatively straightforward (but still very difficult) task to take a gene from one organism and insert into another where it can be expressed. For example, we can make a goat that secrets tissue plasminogen activator (the gene of which was taken from another organism) in its milk, but that is just one gene. HOWEVER, how one would gather ALL of the genes to make "human milk" from their assorted, various locations, clone them into a rabbit so they will be expressed in the rabbit's mammary glands......THAT is the stuff of a scifi movie.