Scientists Vie To Break Junk DNA's Secret Code

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | Roger Highfield

[blam]

Scientists vie to break junk DNA's secret code

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 06/10/2003)

Huge tracts of human DNA, previously written off as meaningless junk, have been found to contain a hitherto unrecognised "genetic grammar", making the language of our genes much more complex than previously thought.

The discovery is of potentially huge significance, since it could lead to an entirely new explanation for certain diseases and symptoms. A race is now on among teams of scientists worldwide to investigate this cryptic code.

While the genetic recipe of a human being is spelt out with three billion letters of DNA code, only about two per cent of these correspond to the genes - the DNA that describes the proteins that build and operate bodies.

In the latest issue of the journal Science, Prof Stylianos Antonarakis of the University of Geneva Medical School, Dr Ewen Kirkness of the Institute of Genomic Research, Maryland, and colleagues have reported compelling evidence that up to three per cent of our genetic material has a crucial role that is not understood.

They made the unexpected discovery that some DNA regions of humans, dogs and species as distant as elephant and wallaby are nearly identical. These regions of what were once called junk have been dubbed "conserved non-genic sequences", or CNGs, a reference to how they are not conventional genes.

Prof Antonarakis said: "I suspect that mutations in CNGs may contribute to numerous genetic disorders." Defects in CNGs could result in illness while the symptoms of Down's syndrome, caused by an extra copy of a chromosome, might be linked to the presence of additional CNGs.

"Many laboratories are now working on identifying pathogenic mutations," he said.

[PurVirgo]

yes - that nails it exactly!!

not exactly orthodox... but at least I can say I arrived at it on my own - not via indoctination from either camp, you know?

[PurVirgo]

You've got mail

[f.Christian]

Are you ashamed of the boards you monitor ?

Everyone else seems comfortable ... some what public about what they are doing !

see ...

designeduniverse.com

[Ogmios]

IMHO liars deserve no respect, especially professional liars.

Wheat from the chaff again, that's a great opinion, and it is mine as well, that is why I don't respect you.

[gore3000]

What I find most interesting is the inability of prokaryotic organisms to process introns.

Introns are a very big problem for evolution for a couple of reasons:

1. a whole system is required to splice the DNA properly when there are introns present so that the correct protein be produced. Therefore the jump from prokaryotes without them and eukaryotes with them requires the development of a complete system individualized for the expression of each gene that has an intron. An impossible task by random chance.
2. the system for splicing needs to know exactly what to keep and what to leave out. Even in similar species the introns are different in length and in number. This makes again for the impossibility of such changes having occurred by mere chance.

[RightWingNilla]

But the question is - Behaviorally speaking, the only way to observe the outcome would be in a live, whole organism, no? Perhaps that was the object of their research.

I guess it depends on what you are studying. Even if neuroscience you want to see some effect of manipulating the gene. But you are right - you at some point would love to show that your gene does something in the context of the whole animal.

I didn't know they could do that, cultivate an abnormal somatic cell, independent of the organism... That's fascinating.

Oh yeah. If you are interested go to www.atcc.org and you can see all of the cell lines they have available. Most of the human lines available came originally from tumor samples where they just grew the cancer cells out on plastic in artificial media. There is a widely used immortalized line called "HeLa" which is short for Helen Lane...the cells were isolated from a tumor in this person in the early fifties. People are still growing and using them today.

[js1138]

There was no name calling, no attack on any poster

That is the kind of arrogance and uninformed nonsense that evolutionists have been spewing and has been completely refuted by science. Only evos would be so stupid and/or dishonest to claim that 95% of DNA is junk just there so they could prove their stupid theory. Evolution has done more harm to science and consequently killed numerous people with their dishonest arrogance.

You can read post #14 and not detect name calling.

[PurVirgo]

I *try* not to attack - which is not to say that I've never done it.

But when I discuss theory, I leave spirituality out - God is above science's laws. I try to discuss facts, and draw implications solely from empirical evidence. Science in pure form, I believe.

I try not to discuss my personal convictions, however, because they are, frankly, based solely on my personal experience.

That is the basis of critical thinking, and philosophical argument, no? To leave out emotion (personal convictions included), and base discourse solely on concrete evidence.

I wish other people would do that, too.

[gore3000]

Yes you should be banned for all the attacks on non-christian conservatives you have engaged in.

I am about the only person on this thread trying to engage in a scientific discussion. You and your friends have been indulging in character assassination for the last three hundred or so posts. You all are behaving like a bunch of thugs and savages, not like conservatives who believe in free speech, free discussion and a FreeRepublic.

[Ogmios]

Do you see the main assumption here?

DNA sprang out of nothing, just as it is now, it could not have evolved. His main assumption is that evolution is false, therefore everything that exists, sprang into existence as it is now.

Do you notice the circular reasoning that this entails? Do you notice the absolute certainty of his convictions.

Yes, it was impossible for DNA to spring out of nothing as it is now, therefore he is correct in that respect, but because he believes with all his heart that evolution did not happen and could not happen, intelligent design is all he has left. He has backed himself into a corner that he can't get out of.

It is no wonder we cannot communicate, we just do not understand his zealotry and closemindedness.

[gore3000]

Does "gene expression" deteriorate with age? Or is this a chicken and egg problem?-you-

Cancer is in almost all cases a problem of improper gene expression.-me-

Cancer can be caused by various factors which affect gene expression. The wrong replication of a cell can cause a deffect in the DNA which controls gene expression, that is why cancer is most common in older people. Also some viruses can affect the DNA which controls cell replication and thus cause cancer. The mechanism which controls cell replication is quite involved and thus can fail at many points. It is a wonder that it works as well as it does for as long as it does.

[Ogmios]

I like that attitude.

I was amazed how when I joined these threads how the Creationist bunch kept asking me my religion, I had to wonder what my religion had to do with science, then they would ask me if I read the bible, and I had to wonder what that had to do with science, then they would attack me for understanding science etc, and they attacked in all kinds of fascinating ways. Telling me that I post like someone that was banned, in order to get me banned, telling me that I was an atheist, or not really a Christian, etc.

It was very disturbing, I wanted to discuss science, and they wanted to discuss my religious convictions.

Then I realized what I had walked into, Holy Warrior central, they weren't interested in science, they were only interested in spewing their religious convictions and self righteousness across the forum. They wanted to save souls, so they lie, misrepresent, all kinds of nastiness, I have run into it before, but I thought that here above all other forums, it would not be put up with.

Sadly, it is put up with, so I do my best to fight it, and to try and talk science, and do it critically and without getting too personally involved. It is a discussion, nothing more, these people do not know me, and I do not know them, so their opinions really don't mean much. It's a forum, nothing more then a forum. Repeat that to yourself,, and you will be just fine...;)

[js1138]

Gore and Andrew invariably fall back on the argument from improbability. It is similar to the argument from early laws of aerodynamics that proved that bumblebees couldn't fly. In fact, insect flight was studied for decades before being understood. I believe the basic principles were discovered just a few years ago. Of course there was a great deal of circumstancial evidence that bees could fly, dispite the theoretical impossibility.

Arguing against observed fact on the basis of improbability is a risky proposition. One's limb keeps getting shorter and shorter as evidence accumulates. I have every reason to believe that some of the criticisms of evolutionary theory will prove correct. The history of science is full of corrections. The problem isn't with incorrect assertions made by individual scientists; the problem is overthrowing the whole concept of common descent. that will be as tough as proving the earth is only 6000 years old.

[Ogmios]

That is exactly what I was warning Gore3000 about, his generalities are what kills his credibility. His absolutes are just unbelievable, his conviction to trying to destroy evolution is downright scary.

Why does evolution scare him so much? What is it about evolution that gets him into such a tizzy, what is it about evolution makes him close his eyes to all evidence for it, yet keep them open for pseudoscience that somehow disproves it?

It's just absolutely astounding to watch, and frustrating, to see a man who works so hard, waste it on such nonsensical garbage.

As an old commercial once said, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[PurVirgo]

Well, take for example human insulin production in E. coli

The problem with prokaryotic interpretation came to light when the gene for insulin was inserted into E. Coli's DNA.

Insulin is actually 2 chains of Amino Acids, bridged by peptide bonds (if I recall correctly). BUT - E. Coli's primitive DNA couldn't make sense out of that because of the introns. So what they had to do was splice the operon into a 2-part deal. One strain would manufacture one chain, and the other would manufacture the other - both as "waste" products.

After harvesting both components, they were then chemically joined, independent of genetic direction. Thus, you hsve human insulin.

The use of restriction enzymes is pretty specific, and you can "cut out" the introns, which is how recombinant DNA technology works. E. coli, as a prokaryote, can be engineered to produce HgH, Factor VIII, and other human gene products.
But the question remains - How does that information refute evolution?

Have you ever indulged the theory about mitochondria?

Mitochondria has its own DNA, can replicate independently of the eukaryotic cell, is absent from prokaryotic cells.

Yet, it's DNA is circular, remarkably similar to prokaryotic DNA.

The theory goes - is it possible that prokaryotic cells evolved to have a symbiotic relationship to eukaryotic cells?

It certainly is plausible...

[js1138]

And before I get spammed with irrelevant arguments, I accept the mathematics of the improbability argument, but doing sums correctly is irrelevant if the model is incorrect. Since even those who argue design do not really have a working model, the improbability argument is premature, at best.

If one is to argue that a string of characters is in fact a computer program, one has to deconstruct the language, decompile the data, the functions and the operators. I can't prove that this can't and won't be done, but I an certain it has not yet been done.

[Alamo-Girl]

Er, you left my theory off your list! OTOH, mine is best expressed in terms of the age of the universe and not the age of the earth. So, if you don't mind, here's your list changed to the age of the universe with mine added at the end:

The age of the universe is most nearly

6000 years old

15 billion years old

6000 years old, but was created with an apparent age of 15 billion years

15 billion years old from our space/time coordinates which - according to inflationary theory and relativity - is equal to 6 equivalent solar days from God's inception space/time coordinates plus 6000 years (Adamic man)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Maybe it's 4,000,000 billion years old but was created to appear only 6000 years old.

Another possibility:

The Sun and the Moon

The first sun, the water sun, was carried off by the flood. All who lived in the world were turned into fishes.

The second sun was devoured by tigers.

The third was destroyed by a firestorm, which burned up the people.

The fourth sun, the wind sun, was wiped away by the storm. The people turned into monkeys and scattered in the woods.

Deep in thought, the gods met in Teotihuacán.

“Who will take care of bringing the dawn?”

The Lord of the Snails, famous for his strength and beauty, stepped forward.

“I will be the sun,” he said.

“Who else?

Silence.

The all looked at Little God Purulent, the ugliest and unluckiest of the gods, and they decided:

“You.”

The Lord of the Snails and Little God Purulent retired to the hills, which are now the pyramids of the sun and of the moon. There, fasting, they mediated.

Then the gods gathered firewood, built an enormous bonfire, and called them.

The Little God Purulent braced himself and jumped into the flames. He immediately emerged incandescent in the sky.

The Lord of the Snails looked frowning at the fire. He advanced, retreated, stopped. He turned around a few times. As he didn’t make up his midn, they had to push him. After much delay he rose into the sky. Furious, the gods slapped his face. They hit his face with a rabbit, again and again, until they killed his brightness. Thus, the arrogant Lord of the Snails became the moon. The stains on the moon are the scars of that punishment.

But the resplendent sun did not move. The sparrow hawk of obsidian (lava) flew to the Little God Purulent:

“Why don’t you move?”

And the despised, the purulent, the hunchback, the cripple, answered:

“Because I want the blood and the kingdom.”

This fifth sun, the sun of movement, illuminated the Toltecs and illuminates the Aztecs. It has claws and feeds on human hearts.

[PurVirgo]

I'll have to check that out.

You must work in a lab, no? What kind of work do you do?

[Ogmios]

Now that I like, I like that a lot.

I have never even heard that theory, is that your very own theory, or is it somewhere that I can look at it?

Sounds fascinating, even plausible, scientifically.

Yes, that's elegant.

Puts everything together in a nice tight little package, no bow needed.

And now I am late, talk to you all later, I have an appointment at another forum.