Last week, I visited deCODE Genetics in Reykjavík, Iceland. To culturally prepare (procrastinate work), I hit my trusty Wikipedia to research all about Iceland.

Obviously, the first thing one needs to know when visiting Iceland is the ancient Viking runic system.

So, for a bit of Icelandic-cultural bio-blog genomics flare:

DNA	Binary	Rune	Name	Translation	Unicode
AA	0000 (00)		fe	wealth	0×16A0
AG	0001 (01)		ur	rain	0×16A2
AC	0010 (02)		thurs	giant (as in Thursday)	0×16A6
AT	0011 (03)		as	aesir	0×16AC
GA	0100 (04)		reidh	journey	0×16B1
GG	0101 (05)		kaun	ulcer	0×16B4
GC	0110 (06)		hagall	hail	0×16BC
GT	0111 (07)		naud	need	0×16BE
CA	1000 (08)		iss	ice	0×16C1
CG	1001 (09)		ar	boon	0×16C5
CC	1010 (10)		sol	sun	0×16C8
CT	1011 (11)		tyr	Tyr (as in Tuesday)	0×16CF
TA	1100 (12)		bjarken	birch	0×16D2
TG	1101 (13)		madhr	man	0×16D8
TC	1110 (14)		logr	waterfall	0×16DA
TT	1111 (15)		yr	yew	0×16E6

These runes and translations are from the Icelandic interpretation of the Younger Furthark runic system. (see runic font help below if rune characters appear as “?”) (runic letter pronunciation guide)

Two 2-bit (4 bases) bases together make a 4-bit number (16 runes). Nucleotide base numbering is based on this representation:

This representation is convenient because the Base Number both identifies the base as a Purine or Pyrimidine and can be inverted to get the base’s matching Base Number. (how are bases usually represented in bioinformatic software?)

Font Support

To display Unicode Younger Futhark rune characters, you need a Unicode font supporting the Unicode runic range (pdf). I use Junicode (download font). To enter characters, the easiest way to enter non-standard Unicode characters on any system is to copy-and-paste from a text table (Wikipedia’s Unicode table of runic characters in plain-text).

FAQ

Q: Why not codons, the standard grouping of three nucleotides?

A: Because that would be 64 (4^3) symbols, and that’s too many to remember. However, if you don’t mind 64 new symbols, the Cirth runic language from “Lord of the Rings” has 64 runes (60 letters + 4 punctuation marks) —and it’s in LaTeX! (However, Cirth is not official unicode… yet) Using the same base-numbering scheme, one could make a DNA codon Runic map, too.

Q: Why Younger Furthark and not other Runic systems?

A: Because Younger Furthark just so happens to have exactly 16 characters.

Q: I have been to / am from Iceland and I have never needed to know this.

A: That’s not a question.

Q: Have you considered selling “Genetic Tests” by which you take an arbitrary DNA sequence, “translate” it into runes, and make it into some kind of trendy “runic fortune?” Considering that “alternative medicine” is some bazillion dollar industry and people already buy runic shit because it’s “cool” and “spiritual,” you’d probably make a killing… probably more than (technically) scientifically-legitimate genetic testing services.

A: What? What kind of asshole do you think I am? (It’s almost like I wrote my own FAQ questions or something.)

#RuneTable { border: none; margin: 1.6em auto; width: 90%; } #RuneTable tr { padding-bottom: 4px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #ccc; } #RuneTable th, #RuneTable td { vertical-align: top; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.6em; border-bottom: 1px dotted #ccc; } #RuneTable th {</p> <p>} td.RuneTable-binary, td.RuneTable-num, td.RuneTable-unicode { text-align: right !important; } #RuneTable td, #RuneTable th { padding: 2px 13px 2px 0px !important; } #BaseTable { border: none; margin: 1.6em auto; width: 70%; } #InverseTable { border: none; margin: 1.6em auto; width: 70%; } #BaseTable td, #BaseTable th, #InverseTable td, #InverseTable th { padding: 2px 13px 2px 0px !important; }