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Scientists Vie To Break Junk DNA's Secret Code
The Telegraph (UK) ^ | Roger Highfield

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.


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: crevolist; geneticgrammar; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; junkdna
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1 posted on 10/06/2003 4:34:07 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam
Huge tracts of human DNA, previously written off as meaningless junk

Translation: In our arrogance we dismissed as meaningless that which we could not understand.

2 posted on 10/06/2003 4:36:19 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Even if the government took all your earnings, you wouldn’t be, in its eyes, a slave.)
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To: All
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3 posted on 10/06/2003 4:36:51 PM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: blam
Prof Antonarakis said: "I suspect that mutations in CNGs may contribute to numerous genetic disorders."


4 posted on 10/06/2003 4:37:18 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan (It's time for Arnold to stop splitting the Republican vote and step aside for the good of the party)
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To: blam
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.

An old quote comes to mind: "God doesn't make junk."

5 posted on 10/06/2003 4:37:59 PM PDT by strela (Will Tom McClintock have to "make a re$ervation" to pay back all that Indian money?)
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To: blam; Woodstock
ping
6 posted on 10/06/2003 4:38:04 PM PDT by NetValue (They are not Americans, they're democrats.)
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To: strela
Another good saying is "Nature abhors a vacuum". What does one expect from a society whose members buy "junk bonds", watches "junk entertainment" and pack away too much "junk in their trunk"?
7 posted on 10/06/2003 4:47:58 PM PDT by NewRomeTacitus (Magic is a manifestation of technology or physics beyond current understanding.)
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To: NewRomeTacitus
....while eating junk food...
8 posted on 10/06/2003 4:55:16 PM PDT by Ready4Freddy (Veni Vidi Velcro)
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To: blam; gore3000; Junior; general_re; VadeRetro; jennyp
Who woulda thunk it...
9 posted on 10/06/2003 4:56:20 PM PDT by Southack (Media bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: blam
HERVs and Introns
10 posted on 10/06/2003 5:00:25 PM PDT by BiffWondercat
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To: blam
Nothing really new. Scientists have been saying for years that "junk" DNA may have an unknown function, possibly structural (involved in conserving chromosomal 3-D structure). This is just some more conformation of that. Nothing specific though.
11 posted on 10/06/2003 5:27:46 PM PDT by Wacka
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To: blam
DNA is the history of our evolution.
12 posted on 10/06/2003 5:28:38 PM PDT by MonroeDNA (Please become a monthly donor!!! Just $3 a month--you won't miss it, and will feel proud!)
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To: Blood of Tyrants
Translation: In our arrogance we dismissed as meaningless that which we could not understand.

Only evolutionists, real scientists knew very well that the rest has tremendous importance. In fact the reason why cancer was not understood for decades was due to the emphasis on the genes themselves rather than on how they worked. Cancer is in almost all cases a problem of improper gene expression. The very involved mechanism which tells a cell when to duplicate somehow goes awry and this causes cancer. This information, this control is not to be found in the gene, but the rest of the DNA which the evolutionists deceitfully or ignorantly called junk.

13 posted on 10/06/2003 6:12:54 PM PDT by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: MonroeDNA
DNA is the history of our evolution.

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.

14 posted on 10/06/2003 6:15:59 PM PDT by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: gore3000
God invented evolution.
15 posted on 10/06/2003 6:18:21 PM PDT by MonroeDNA (Please become a monthly donor!!! Just $3 a month--you won't miss it, and will feel proud!)
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To: MonroeDNA
God invented evolution.

If he did then it was certainly not Darwinian evolution. If God did it then life and the species were intelligently designed.

16 posted on 10/06/2003 7:42:47 PM PDT by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: gore3000
Mutagenic compounds, of course play no role in this.
Nor more then the Estrogenic substances, that are quite harmless of course.

These cells not only have mastered the art of repairing their telomeres, they also seem able to establish a vasular system to support it.

That 'junk' that you ridicule has not been overlooked by all.

I find mitochondrial DNA very interesting...

17 posted on 10/06/2003 8:02:33 PM PDT by BiffWondercat
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To: Southack
Nobelist Kary Mullis back in 1998 wrote:

We live with an uncountable number of retroviruses. They're everywhere -- and they probably have been here as long as the human race. We have them in our genome. We get some of them from our mothers in the form of new viruses -- infectious viral particles that can move from mother to fetus. We get others from both parents along with our genes. We have resident sequences in our genome that are retroviral. That means that we can and do make our own retroviral particles some of the time. Some of them may look like H.I.V. No one has shown that they've ever killed anyone before.

There's got to be a purpose for them; a sizable fraction of our genome is comprised of human endogenous retroviral sequences. There are those who claim that we carry useless D.N.A., but they're wrong. If there is something in our genes, there's a reason for it. We don't let things grow on us. I have tried to put irrelevant gene sequences into things as simple as bacteria. If it doesn't serve some purpose, the bacteria get rid of it right away. I assume that my body is at least as smart as bacteria when it comes to things like D.N.A.

18 posted on 10/06/2003 8:03:57 PM PDT by AdamSelene235 (I always shoot for the moon......sometimes I hit London.- Von Braun)
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To: BiffWondercat
That 'junk' that you ridicule has not been overlooked by all.

You need to reread my posts. I do not ridicule the 'junk' DNA. It is the evolutionists that ridicule it. In fact, I think it is the most important part of living things.

I find mitochondrial DNA very interesting...

I do too, it is at the very heart of non-plant organisms. It is the source of the energy for life's functions, and it is amazing what it does.

19 posted on 10/06/2003 9:12:05 PM PDT by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: gore3000
If you're trolling for a fish, better skip off the bottom.
20 posted on 10/06/2003 9:16:04 PM PDT by BiffWondercat
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