'Junk' DNA Mystery Solved: It's Not Needed

So-called junk DNA, the vast majority of the genome that doesn't code for proteins, really isn't needed for a healthy organism, according to new research.

"At least for a plant, junk DNA really is just junk — it's not required," said study co-author Victor Albert, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Buffalo in New York.

Albert and his colleagues sequenced the genome of the carnivorous bladderwort plant, Utricularia gibba, which lives in wet soil or fresh water throughout the world and sucks swimming microorganisms into its tiny, 1-milimeter-long bladders.

The genome had just 80 million base pairs. Compared with most other plant species, that genome was positively tiny, Albert said. The lily genome, for instance, can have 40 billion base pairs.

Yet the bladderwort had about 28,500 genes, not much different from plants of similar type and complexity.

The difference was in the junk: The bladderwort plant seemed to have stripped out a vast amount of noncoding DNA. Yet the plant did just fine without that material.

In fact, through a genetic quirk the bladderwort had its entire genome duplicated — meaning the plant got two full copies of the genome — three separate times since it diverged from the tomato. Yet the carnivorous plant somehow retained its tiny genome.

“DNA could not be formed by chance.”

It is not formed by chance alone, it is formed by thermodynamics. Life consumes energy and orders itself by increasing the entropy of its environment. It is ridiculously simple to understand, if you are not burdened by nonsensical dogma. A little probability theory, and a little game theory, and you pretty much know the rules. You should give it a try.

Some say that God achieves His natural goals by using His natural laws. I can live with that.

Heh. A few years ago, a friend of mine had surgery on his coccyx. Basically, it was abnormally long and that, combined with a sedentary career in IT, had resulted in a cyst forming. He spent weeks going on about how his abnormal coccyx was proof that it was a vestigial tail, of evolution from primates, etc. etc.

Finally, I just said, "Okay, you win! I give! I admit that your long tailbone is proof that you, personally, evolved from a monkey!"

Even our other evolutionist friends thought that was hilarious.

Shalom!

So where did they stuff all of the research that clearly says elsewise?

"Junk DNA Not Junk After All"

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250006.php

Also, a Christian site "icr.org" refutes this finding saying it is based upon circular reasoning with a base of needing to start with an evolutionary perspective, which they are afraid a lack of junk DNA refutes.

"The Resurrection of 'Junk DNA'?"

http://www.icr.org/article/resurrection-junk-dna/

Also interestingly, according to this article, Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analysis coordinator is himself an evolutionist.

"Junk DNA Myth Continues Its Demise"

http://www.icr.org/article/junk-dna-myth-continues-its-demise/

(Excerpt with underline added.)......

The second phase of ENCODE has been no less spectacular in its discoveries. In the lead research paper, published in the journal Nature, the authors wrote, “These data enabled us to assign biochemical functions for 80% of the genome, in particular outside of the well-studied protein-coding regions.”1

And what about the remaining 20 percent of the genome—is it functional too? According to Ewan Birney, ENCODE’s lead analysis coordinator, it is probably not meaningless junk either. Birney said, “It’s likely that 80 percent will go to 100 percent” and “we don’t really have any large chunks of redundant DNA. This metaphor of junk isn’t that useful.”4

Despite being an evolutionist himself, Birney expects that many critics will argue about the 80 percent figure and the definition of what is “functional.” Birney added, “[That figure] best [conveys] the difference between a genome made mostly of dead wood and one that is alive with activity” and “no matter how you cut it, we’ve got to get used to the fact that there’s a lot more going on with the genome than we knew.”4

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