Posted on 10/06/2003 4:34:06 PM PDT by 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.
Cancer is in almost all cases a problem of improper gene expression.
Cancer is in almost all cases a problem of improper gene expression.
The earth's age is most nearly
The Earth is more than 25K years old. Geology, fossils, fossil fuels, etc. support that.
The complexity of DNA (ALL DNA) suggests intelligent design. Simple components (A-T-C-G) combined in billions of different configurations and strings (genes) support that. Not to mention, atomic structure and configuration suggest a high level of order not best left as "random".
I think the proper term is Old-Earth Creationist, but I don't think that's actually a way of thinking that's accepted (but it is my way of thinking).
I read it, and I refuted it. It is a waste of resources. Furthermore, if it were not for the numerous DNA not in genes, there would be no need for so many chromosomes which necessitates a very complex system to sustain it and continue replication.
The analogy to tonsils is a poor one.
No it is not. It is exactly the same nonsense which evolutionists keep claiming over and over - that this or that is a 'fossil' of prior species. It has been proven wrong before and it was proven wrong AGAIN.
It is clear that most of the junk DNA were once active retrotransposable elements.
No it is not. It cannot be clear what something is if one does not know what it is. This is just the phony science of evolutionists - you have absolutely no evidence of what that DNA is for so you cannot say any such thing. The ALU's were exactly the kind of thing the evos said was due to such unexplainable causes:
Over the past 60 million years, or so, approximately one million copies of Alu DNA repeats have accumulated in the genome of primates, in what appears to be an ongoing process. We determined the phylogenetic distribution of specific Alu (and other) DNA repeats in the genome of several primates: human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, baboon, rhesus, and macaque. At the population level studied, the majority of the repeats was found to be fixed in the primate species. Our data suggest that new Alu elements arise in unique, irreversible events, in a mechanism that seems to preclude precise excision and loss. The same insertions did not arise independently in two species. Once inserted and genetically fixed, the DNA elements are retained in all descendant lineages. The irreversible expansion of Alu s introduces a vector of time into the evolutionary process, and provides realistic (rather than statistical) answers to questions on phylogenies. In contrast to point mutations, the present distribution of individual Alu s is congruent with just one phylogeny. We submit that only irreversible and taxonomically relevant events are at the molecular basis of evolution. Most point mutations do not belong to this category. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.
From: Pub Med
Well the above has been proven to be an essential part of an organism in the process of cell replication by real science (you know, the folk that use microscopes, do real experiments, get their hands dirty, etc.). So, no, it was not of viral origin since it was always needed.
You take yourself too seriously.
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 didn't know they could do that, cultivate an abnormal somatic cell, independent of the organism... That's fascinating.
There was no name calling, no attack on any poster, it was a statement of fact which none of you can refute. Yes, it was dishonest of evolutionists to claim that all DNA not in genes was junk. Real scientists had known long before the genome project made it obvious that the DNA not in genes had to be of the utmost importance since genes needed to be controlled and regulated for an organism to be able to function. This is even obvious to non-scientists that genes cannot be 'on' all the time and that there therefore had to be a mechanism to turn them on and off and tell them how much. So yes, it is perfectly legitimate to call those who call themselves scientists and made such claims to be liars. And frankly, IMHO liars deserve no respect, especially professional liars.
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