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[LordKinbote]

[Ehsan]

There is SOME sort of pattern..

breaking the text into groups of 5 letters..

Original: ROT: Becomes

w i h a l
6 6 6 6 6
c o n g r


b w x m o
25 23 23 25 12
a t u l a


a l r h z
19 23 23 6 19
t i o n s


f v x b b
19 19 23 6 25
y o u h a


c h j i g
19 23 ? ? ?
v e ? ? ?


"Congratulations, you have"


Others:

w h w k h
23 23 23 23 23
t e t h e


h z u c l
6 6 6 6 6
n f a i r


u v a u l
19 19 19 19 19
n o t n e

j t p v u
25 25 25 25 25
i s o u t



Notice a pattern? Everything is ROT 6, 19, 23, or 25... with the exception of one ROT 12....

[ItWasntMeISwear]

p

[Ehsan]

My current guess: "Congratulations, you have completed your.."

Here's my super-duper-decrypto-matic worksheet..

You can try out different ROT values and see what you get.. it's very trial & error but I'm out of ideas because I can't find a pattern, and have no idea what cfa. means.

[jbd]

What job did you apply for? Did it have to do with biology?

[jbd]

The reason I ask is:
a.) The applicant needs to be familiar with "Genetech protocols"

b.) The only references I see popping up for "Canis familiaris" referred to as 'CFA' are various genome projects, such as the dog genome project here:
http://www.fhcrc.org/science/dog_genome/

c.) This could be a "test" for job applicants to make sure they actually know "Genetech protocols".

Just out of curiousity, I tried rotting with the letters A, C, G, and T. I am presuming it would be a mix of these.

A: XJIBMCXYNPBMSIAGWYCCDIKJHKTGVGHGWCVXIXLIKKCPOIAVDMA
QXGYXZELOQTHWTAQWTKJRADVHVVMSRESYIVWBVMRRVSZKUQWV
INHVMBQCPNOVBC

C: ZLKDOEZAPRDOUKCIYAEEFKMLJMVIXIJIYEXZKZNKMMERQKCXFOCS
ZIAZBGNQSVJYVCSYVMLTCFXJXXOUTGUAKXYDXOTTXUBMWSYXKPJ
XODSERPQXDE

G: GSRKVLGHWYKVBRJPFHLLMRTSQTCPEPQPFLEGRGURTTLYXRJEMVJZG
PHGINUXZCQFCJZFCTSAJMEQEEVBANBHREFKEVAAEBITDZFERWQEV
KZLYWXEKL

T: AMLEPFABQSEPVLDJZBFFGLNMKNWJYJKJZFYALAOLNNFSRLDYGPDTAJ
BACHORTWKZWDTZWNMUDGYKYYPVUHVBLYZEYPUUYVCNXTZYLQKY
PETFSQRYEF

[ellipses]

This is surely it! Good spot - it simply must be something to do with chromosome 16 (CFA. 16). But, dang, I just can't find the answer - and now I have to go to bed. I bet its solved by the time I get up again...

[deadman]

Ehasan may have directed us into the right path. Using only the four rotations he pointed out appeared to be common: 6, 19, 23, 25 - I can get this message so far

Congratulutions (sic), you have completed your path...

Now, I'm the first to admit there could be a lot of random chance to this. that fair phrase we looked at before could be, with only those 4 letters, fair, wave or save. Without a key, I'll never know. But I find it curious we are finding references to DNA, with only 4 bases. So perhaps, the gene in question is the code. I don't think the pattern I used to get the above phrase repeats itself later in the message. I wouldn't have posted this at all, except the fact I could get completed out of there seemed like it warranted a post. But it's all pretty grey. I mean "your p" (original text is FVBUW) could also be "count" with these rotations. There are a lot of possibilities. Count doesn't seem to make sense obviously, but...

Here are rotational values to get above string.

6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 25, 23, 23, 25, 6, 19, 23, 23, 6, 19, 19, 19, 23, 6, 25, 19, 23, 19, 6, 6, 6, 19, 25, 25, 25, 23, 19, 19, 19, 23, 19, 19, 23, 23

[deadman]

I should point at that those four numbers, any way you rotate them, never equal A. C, G, and T at the same same. A lot of Google searching (and even other search engines) failed to find any gene squences that match up with what I have above.

[Lysithea]

Great job everyone. I think this must be the right track because the letters G,C,A and T can correspond with the numbers 19,23,25 and 6.
Explanation:
To encipher a message using ROT A (or ROT 1) you go forward in the alphabet by one letter, for each letter in the message. To get the original message back again you go backwards by one letter. You can think of this as ROT(-1) or ROT(+25).
So if the message was enciphered using the key letters G, C, A and T, we should look at the values (26-7=19), (26-3=23), (26-1=25) and (26-20=6).
This is similar to the way that the "A similar thought" puzzle was enciphered using the keyword CRYSTL.
Now we need to keep searching for the matching gene sequence.

[Ehsan]

That's it.. we found the key..


If you ROT the OPPOSITE way, the numbers we have make sense.. (for example, 19 becomes 26-19)

ROT 25 = ROT 1 = A
ROT 23 = ROT 3 = C
ROT 19 = ROT 6 = G
ROT 6 = ROT 20 = T

So the sequence we have begins with:

TTTTT ACCAN GCCTG GGCTA ..

Which I presume is part of a genome sequence for canis familiaris, referenced somewhere on the web with ID 16176.

Now somebody find the full sequence and we've got this solved.

EDIT: My first trout... Oh well, that was a good track record.

[ItWasntMeISwear]

p

[jbd]

My science-puzzle-helping wife reports that TTTTT is a stop code while AAAAA would be the start code. So once found, the gene sequence is probably in backward.

Beh. Still need to look some things up. Be back later.

Edit: Ok, TTTTT is a stop code, so the original supposition that the code will be backwards is probably correct.

[LordKinbote]

[Ehsan]

I really thought this was it:

Ensembl Dog Genome Browser

Notice the results: Canis familiaris, Cfa.#

Unfortunately Cfa. 16176 does not exist!!

This is frustrating..