Comments on Pale Comic: Routes Update

It may be co-incidence, but if you take the comple...

2009-02-26T02:37:00.000-08:00

It may be co-incidence, but if you take the complementary sequence to the second strand, and translate it, then one of the reverse reads (which would be expected, since the strands lie in opposite directions) also starts with the amino acids STG. In full:
STGXRATMYIRA-AML

Can't make head nor tail of it, but the chances of the first three amino acids being the same by chance are ~1 in 8000 (bit less, since we've tried multiple approaches). The letters "STGRAY" are also amongst them.

Zoe, I'm not sure about the link to Graves' Diseas...

2009-02-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

Zoe, I'm not sure about the link to Graves' Disease:
- PTU is mentioned, but it looks like it's a person, not a drug: "Call PTU...Confirm W. PTU"
- Graves disease causes eye inflammation, whereas R M Santos-Anderson seems to work on retinal problems.
- LDN can also be an acronym for any of these things: http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/LDN Autoimmune diseases is a fairly broad category, and Graves disease isn't specifically mentioned.
- That protein is a bacterial one, not a human one. Although the Wikipedia article does say that bacteria may trigger the disease, I think typing many random numbers into NCBI will bring up something. It's also in a note about DEPAA, not about DNA.

I've also tried Caesar shift ciphers on the second 'sentence' of the DNA code, but nothing jumps out.

Anonymous: The ARR is odd, and it strikes me as so...

2009-02-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Anonymous: The ARR is odd, and it strikes me as something that is there because of the fact it's a message in code rather than because it's a DNA sequence. It's not necessarily out of place in a DNA sequence, but then it's equivocal - so why is it there?

Zoe: Cool - you've been busy! Given the hint for the first section in the notebooks I'm sure that something else in there will unlock the next section. Still at work so sorry for being unresponsive. Will probably have time to get into it more later :)

Okay.I'm really freaked out.A quick Google search ...

2009-02-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

Okay.
I'm really freaked out.
A quick Google search of LDN brought up Low Dose Naltrexone - a drug which may be able to treat autoimmune diseases such as Graves' Disease.

http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/ARRAll are p...

2009-02-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/ARR

All are popular acronyms for ARR - none jump out at me though.

What would your interpretation of the "ARR" toward...

2009-02-20T15:12:00.000-08:00

What would your interpretation of the "ARR" towards the end of the code? It doesn't code for anything does it? It's not even written in bases (unlike the rest of the message) it seems a bit strange that someone who seemed to know so much about genetics would put it in there by accident but I just can't work it out.

Mike,I've been looking through some of the stuff i...

2009-02-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

Mike,
I've been looking through some of the stuff in Markus' notebook and may have a lead as to what his illness was.

Firstly, in 1314-libreta3 Markus mentions PTU twice. I googled PTU and it's a drug used to treat Graves Disease:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves_disease

Could the $5000 paid have been towards research?

Secondly, in 1314-libreta2, the name RM Santos comes up. A quick search sent me to Ophthalmic Genetics:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g785731538~db=all
Problems with the eyes are key symptoms of Graves Disease.

Finally, in 1314-libreta2
, the number 1789023 is written down.
Searching this took me to the NBCI - It's a DNA Binding protein:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?dopt=GenPept&cmd=Retrieve&db=protein&list_uids=1789023

I'm not sure how this Protein connects to Markus - perhaps he was testing it for a cure to the disease?

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but to be honest we need to search through every scrap of evidence we have right now.

Hope you're okay.
xo

This is amazing! Makes me realise how much I still...

2009-02-20T11:17:00.000-08:00

This is amazing! Makes me realise how much I still need to learn. Thanks so much for all your hard work. Rachcon1 x