So you can imagine our reaction to seeing a photo of the Dennis Rodman trip to North Korea that is all over today's news (story here). We noticed the people in the Rodman entourage:
Rodman is in the foreground, as the star attraction. But close behind, in what may seem on the surface like an entourage of flunkies or thugs to help the star, is the unmistakeable likeness of one of our long-term collaborators--not in basketball, but in science!!
This is Joe Terwilliger (the guy just behind, in the large shades and blue jacket). Now, Joe is a musician by primary training (tuba) and may be expected to be in groupie-like scenes (he is, in other ways, as for example impersonating Abe Lincoln on his--Lincoln's--birthday on the streets of Manhattan every February). Nor, to our knowledge, is he a thug.
No, Joe has two potentially relevant skills (that we know of). He is exceptionally skilled at language, with serious-level abilities in Finnish, Chinese (Mandarin, we think), and, yes, Korean (northern and southern). So perhaps though he's dressed like a body guard, his smirk suggests that he's on some other mission.
And we think we know what it could be. We think he could be on a surreptitious mission to bring genetics to the benighted North. In fact, he's practiced and studied the North Korean dialect, and he's visited and even taught genetics there before. But all that was without the splash of a Rodman visit. So maybe the idea is that if the North Koreans are taught genetics they will be more willing to join the western frenzy and get into the GWAS game.
Why do this on the QT? Maybe because if we knew they were jumping into the genomics Big Data game they could quickly assemble the world's largest data base--by force marching all their citizens to a sequencing center, for example. That might take business away from us, the Europeans, and even the Chinese!
Should we worry? Well, maybe, because mass starvation should be a form of strong natural selection that could reveal vulnerable and protective genotypes. What an international scoop! Why, even Science and Nature and other popular magazines like them would lust (competitively) for the story. We can see their cover story, typically cute: "Food for thought".
But things could be more ominous. The North Koreans could know that NIH will lustfully dump milllions or billions into such a project to be the first to jump into this (as they would say) unprecedented opportunity for paradigm-shifting science and personalized genomic medicine.
But wait a second. Perhaps Joe's innocent intentions could lead to some dire consequences. The North Koreans would of course buy many Next Generation sequencing machines and all sorts of other gear that they can't make themselves. But would they release the data? Or, worse, would they take the opportunity to clone the machines and then undercut the US genomics-technology industry?
Joe T is no fool, but is he a dupe? Only time will tell.
The mystery in all of this is deepened by the fact that we've never seen him in person wearing a tie. We'll leave the interpretation of that to you, our readers.
15 comments:
I'll add this afterthought: maybe this is a plot to Reaganize the North Koreans. Reagan outspent the USSR in defense, making them scramble to keep up and, as many analyses seem to have suggested, bankrupted them, leading to their political failure.
If the North Koreans get too deeply into the bigger-data-than you game, enticed cleverly by us, they'll spend even more money on keeping-up activities until their regime collapses, and the bells of freedom ring.
It makes much more sense that he's there to play the tuba.
Hey, cool! This means I'm just two degrees of separation from Kim Jong-Un. And Dennis Rodman, for that matter.
Isn't it four? I figure I'm three--I've shaken hands with Joe who has shaken with Rodman who has shaken with Kim.
Whatever the number, it's scary!
Wow, this is so weird! Did DRod know Terwilliger before this trip?
Yes, they had met before, and even shot baskets somewhere (probably New York).
Yes, they'd met. To play HORSE.
If the North Koreans are being taught genetics by Joe, won't they be less likely to get into the GWAS game?
I personally saw Joe wearing a tie in late July, but he's still, as always, an extremely talented mystery to me.
Dan makes a good point. For those who don't know the Inside Story, Joe T often teaches people to spend their time on orchestrated mass marching, or shooting baskets, rather than doing GWAS. So it's possible that he'd teach the Koreans to organize more marches or Horse games.
But Joe's a subtle guy, and we don't know what side of the fence he'd be on in this case.
Or, for that matter, whether the guy in the picture is really a Korean masquerading as Joe for some strange propaganda reason......naw, there isn't anybody in Korea who's as tall (or well fed) as Joe!
You have a good point. I think it's an experiment -- what happens when you teach a virgin country to do genetics properly from the start?
I have shaken hands with Kim if you haven't noticed, Ken! Not to mention all the shots we did together...
In our souvenir photo you can see a man who is so tall he makes Rodman look short - Rodman barely comes up to his shoulders... He seems to be Marfan, but....
Pictures! We need pictures!
It's hard to believe two years later that. Many non-scientist friends actually believe I went to DPRK to do a GWAS and messed up translating genes to beans.... Scary the influence satire has on people who don't understand the concept (like most people who are NK watchers).
Well, being dense is not restricted to NK watchers, or scientists. Unfortunately, it's part of our make up. Perhaps being prone to believe what we're told was of survival value.....especially for the survival of con artists and other dissemblers. But it should be obvious when something is so blatantly meant in fun!
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