[Ahban]

So what controls how active genes are? Is there some other control device besides genes that we are missing? How and to what extent does that unkown device "evolve"?

How do human brains go through five times the changes of chimp brains in the same amount of time, even though we have over double the life span?

These are the questions. I doubt we will get definitive answers, but the speculating is kinda fun!

[Heartlander]

“We have broken the code that interprets just 5% of the total amount of information contained in DNA. Even that 5% presents countless mysteries of how that information is manipulated and altered within the human body. It is not like reading a recipe book and baking a cake like Richard Dawkins would have us believe. This “recipe book” is more like 5,000 stacks of books in a huge pile. It is written in a language that we do not understand and we do not have the slightest idea what parts of this pile of “junk” information is used for what. But it is not as simple as that really. Even if we did know what part of the pile was appropriate we do not know at what times that information is turned on and off or how it is otherwise regulated. “

[RightWhale]

An attempt to link to a similar thread.

[Pontiac]

So what controls how active genes are? Is there some other control device besides genes that we are missing? How and to what extent does that unkown device "evolve"?

I agree genetic scientist may have been missing something fundamental. Perhaps nucleic DNA may just provide the basic framework of what we are to be.

Perhaps mitochondrial DNA plays a large role in development than suspected.

[jennyp]

How do human brains go through five times the changes of chimp brains in the same amount of time, even though we have over double the life span?

No, I think the article says the genes that affect the brain mutated 5 times as much in humans as did chimps' brains' genes since we split off from each other.

[Junior]

Bump.