Comments on: Ultimate Spider-Man #98: A Medical Review

By: hrgsthgs

hrgsthgs — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 15:57:06 +0000

interracial…

ualnetzde zxanafjpka avfagqdeaa cnbbljaork tfvweym nehoottyv…

By: Athelind

Athelind — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:50:06 +0000

And not quite three months later, new studies indicate (to everyone’s surprise) that “It would seem the assumption that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9% similar in content and identity no longer holds.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6174510.stm

Just happened to stumble across this article on the same day that I was catching up on the Polite Archives!

By: Zach

Zach — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 18:55:09 +0000

I believe Bendis has specifically linked the clone to the blood sample taken by somebody named Ben Reilly. I don’t read the book, so I don’t know when this was, but that seems to be it.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 13:25:02 +0000

But M, you’re forgetting an important factor in your argument: the writer.
No writer, particularly a wordy one like Bendis, is going to deny Reed the chance to prove to reading audience how smart he is (and by extension how clever the writer is). They would have him say all those extra 9s, or at the very least have him go into a lengthy explanation about why he didn’t.
(Good science explanations though)

By: Jordan

Jordan — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 07:30:18 +0000

I believe the blood samples would have come from either Dr Connors, or from Nick Fury. When Spider Man was patched up by the Wasp, and Fury told Spider Man he essentially owned him, I think he also mentioned saving some of his blood. I may be remembering it wrong.

On a side note, just found out about your blog today, and I’m loving it. I’m an ex-Navy cryptologist, and a huge comic fan. Plus, I watch House. Your site rules.

By: M

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 06:11:27 +0000

I think the quote supports Anon & I.*

As you said, an actual DNA homology test would’ve been expected to show less than 1% difference between any two humans alive today, not ‘all or nothing’ but all or 99.9%.

He’s just factored out that 99.9%.

*Although I also favor Chance’s option 5. I would’ve offered it myself, but decided it’d be uncharitable given that I haven’t read any of Bendis’s writing and don’t intend to.

Also for readers who may not know, in the real world those DNA comparisons between species to see how similar aren’t normally done by sequence the whole genome and comparing them**. Takes too long. What you do is have the two samples anneal into, for lack of a less misleading term, a ‘hybrid’ double-helix and measure the degree of mismatch between them. **Or you can sequence a portion, like a specific gene, and compare how much that part has diverged between the two.

The DNA ‘fingerprint’ used in to establish identity or parentage, doesn’t involve sequencing either, in that case you look at patterns in a type of ‘junk’ DNA consisting of huge stretches of the same bit repeated over and over again, to see how many millions of times it repeats. So person 1 with repeats of lengthes A,C,G & K is not the same as person 2 with repeats of B, D, F & K. Twins or other clones should have the same DNA fingerprint (though their actual fingerprint fingerprints would be different), two people who’re parent and child or full siblings should have about half the lines in common and barring a drastic mutation no child should have a line that isn’t present in at least one parent.

Talking about a 94% DNA match suggests a homology comparison not a DNA fingerprint, where you’d have a probability like say 94% certainty that the two samples were from the same person. Though in the real world you wouldn’t compare individual humans who should be 99.9+% identical using homology tests, you’d use DNA fingerprints.

So, it’s Reed Richards. He did sequence two human genomes completely because he’s Reed Richards, and compare them and find them to be 99.9942% identical then lopped of the irrelevant 99.9% and renormalized. That or the comic book people couldn’t be bothered to fact check against the most commonly known discovery of molecular biology.

By: Chance

Chance — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 02:20:27 +0000

5. The writer is Brian Michael Bendis. (See [3] above.)

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 01:31:19 +0000

Oliver, That's certainly a possibility. I was thinking Peter had some DNA taken during the Venom or Carnage storyline, but I don't remember precisely. Anonymous and M, I stick with my original interpretation. Here's the dialogue:

SM: Ninety-four percent? You said ninety-four percent? RR: Yes. SM: Ninety-four percent what? RR: It's a ninety-four percent DNA match, which is odd. It's usually a matach or it's not, but the finding was so specific to the medical records of --

By: Oliver Townshend

Oliver Townshend — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:05:59 +0000

My further thoughts – what if the clone is a perfect clone, and the 94% comparison is Peter Parker (now) to Peter Parker when the DNA sample was taken (i.e. prior to being bitten)?

By: M

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:53:36 +0000

Ditto what Anonymous said. For the no-prize, 94.2 % identity in the 0.1% that isn’t automatically identical among humans.