Researchers Nigel Goldenfeld and Thomas Kuhlman noticed that “half of the human genome is made up of retrotransposons [jumping genes, “junk DNA”], but bacteria hardly have them at all” and wondered what would happen if they just inserted some: “We thought a really simple thing to try was to just take one (retrotransposon) out of […]
‘Junk DNA’
Humans may have only 19,000 coding genes
And we are not sure which ones they are. From ScienceDaily: Research Centre (CNIO) reveals that up to 20% of genes classified as coding (those that produce the proteins that are the building blocks of all living things) may not be coding after all because they have characteristics that are typical of non-coding or pseudogenes […]
“Junk DNA” regulates regeneration of tissues and organs
From ScienceDaily: Scientists at the MDI Biological Laboratory and the University of Maine have discovered that genetic material in the cell that was previously thought to be “junk” because of its apparent lack of function likely plays a part in regulating genetic circuits responsible for regeneration in highly regenerative animals. … The discovery of these […]
How “useless junk” DNA switches on a target gene
From ScienceDaily: Researchers have captured video showing how pieces of DNA once thought to be useless can act as on-off switches for genes. These pieces of DNA are part of over 90 percent of the genetic material that are not genes. Researchers now know that this “junk DNA” contains most of the information that can […]
Researchers: Almost one in five genes’ coding status is unresolved
Abstract: Seventeen years after the sequencing of the human genome, the human proteome is still under revision. One in eight of the 22 210 coding genes listed by the Ensembl/GENCODE, RefSeq and UniProtKB reference databases are annotated differently across the three sets. We have carried out an in-depth investigation on the 2764 genes classified as […]
Paul Nelson: Junk DNA is one of those propositions that have “just about the worst track record” in biology.
With respect to “A “junk DNA” jumping gene is critical for embryo cell development, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson writes to say, In personal correspondence over the past couple of years with a tenured geneticist at a major university who is a “junk DNA” proponent, I’ve pointed out that “x has no function” propositions in […]
Junk DNA: Darwinism evolves swiftly in real time
From David Klinghoffer at ENST, on Darwinism and the recent find that junk DNA can alter genitalia: The “junk” view, once a prized piece of evidence for neo-Darwinian theory, is thus reduced to the province of the benighted, the reactionaries who “still refer to [it] as ‘junk’ DNA,” after science has already passed them by. Having […]
Junk DNA can actually change genitalia
From at ScienceDaily: Mammals will develop ovaries and become females unless the early sex organs have enough of a protein called SOX9 at a key stage in their development. SOX9 causes these organs to become testes, which then direct the rest of the embryo to become male. The amount of SOX9 produced is controlled initially […]
At Quanta: Cells need almost all of their genes, even the “junk DNA”
From Veronique Greenwood at Quanta: By knocking out genes three at a time, scientists have painstakingly deduced the web of genetic interactions that keeps a cell alive. Researchers long ago identified essential genes that yeast cells can’t live without, but new work, which appears today in Science, shows that looking only at those gives a […]
Amazing! A new way “junk DNA” is useful, admitted
From ScienceDaily: Their findings, published recently in the journal eLife, indicate that this genetic “junk” performs the vital function of ensuring that chromosomes bundle correctly inside the cell’s nucleus, which is necessary for cell survival. And this function appears to be conserved across many species. This pericentromeric satellite DNA consists of a very simple, highly […]
Researcher: Dark DNA raises fundamental questions about evolution
From Adam Hargreaves at New Scientist, No doubt you have heard of dark matter, which is thought to make up over a quarter of the universe. We know it’s there; we just haven’t been able to detect it. Well, something similar is afoot in the genome. My colleagues and I have dubbed this elusive genetic […]
Junk DNA watch: Alus can have their memory re-programmed on several levels
From Sal Cordova at Creation-Evolution Headlines: Chris Rupe co-authored the book Contested Bones with John Sanford to tell about the inadequate evidence for human evolution. The book is almost entirely about bones and the fossil record, but there are 3 pages in that book that refute claims by evolutionary biologists that the human genome is […]
New hypothesis as to why flowering plants predominate
From ScienceDaily: Scientists have found an explanation for how flowering plants became dominant so rapidly in ecosystems across the world — a problem that Charles Darwin called an ‘abominable mystery’. In a study publishing on January 11 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, Kevin Simonin and Adam Roddy, from San Francisco State University and […]
Thought for the Day: “False sciences” make the method come first
Philosopher Étienne Gilson (1884–1978): A scientist never begins by defining the method of the science he is about to initiate. Indeed, the surest way of recognizing false sciences is by the fact that they make the method come first. The method, however, should derive from the science, not the science from the method.” – Etienne […]
Viruses hijack “junk” (non-coding) RNA, turns out many non-coding functions “have not been identified”
From Nicholas S. Heaton & Bryan R. Cullen at Nature: Long non-coding RNAs (non-coding RNAs more than 200 nucleotides long) have roles in many aspects of cell biology4,5. In the nucleus, they are involved in transcriptional regulation and remodelling of chromosomes, and in the cytoplasm, they regulate microRNA function as well as the translation of mRNAs […]