Were one to design the encoded DNA “blueprint” of life, would not one incorporate ways to preserve that “blueprint”? The Nobel prize in medicine has just been awarded for discovery of features that look amazingly like design to preserve chromosomes. See:
3 Americans win medicine Nobel for chromosome research
Three U.S. researchers were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on how chromosomes are protected against degradation, the Nobel Foundation reported Monday.
The Nobel Assembly announces the winners of the prize in medicine Monday in Stockholm, Sweden.The Nobel Assembly announces the winners of the prize in medicine Monday in Stockholm, Sweden.
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak will share the $1.4 million prize for research on structures at the end of chromosomes called telomeres and on an enzyme that forms them, called telomerase.
The long, thread-like DNA molecules that carry genes are packed into chromosomes. Telomeres are the caps on the ends of chromosomes. Blackburn and Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation, the Nobel announcement said. Greider and Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase.
If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, high telomerase activity leads to telomere length being maintained and the delay of cellular degradation. That is the case with cancer cells, which do not degrade easily. Certain inherited diseases, in contrast, are characterized by a defective telomerase, which results in damaged cells.. . .
See interviews with the Nobel Committee announcement
These telomeres can probably be shown to be essential to survival, and are likely to be irreducibly complex. If so, how can macro evolution explain the origin of this marvelous preservation feature that appears to be an Intelligent Design?