It’s a story we mayn’t have heard, which includes microchromosomes:
Scientists have discovered that tiny ‘microchromosomes’ in birds and reptiles are the same as the tiny chromosomes in a spineless fish-like ancestor that lived 684 million years ago.
When these little microchromosomes were first seen under the microscope, scientists thought they were just specks of dust scattered among the larger bird chromosomes, but they are actually proper chromosomes with many genes on them.
They prove to be the building blocks of all animal genomes, but underwent a ‘dizzying rearrangement’ in mammals, including humans.
A team led by Professor Jenny Graves at La Trobe University and Associate Professor Paul Waters from UNSW’s School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences have published the findings in PNAS.
The team made the discovery by lining up the DNA sequence of microchromosomes from many different species.
“Not only are they the same in each species, but they crowd together in the centre of the nucleus where they physically interact with each other, suggesting functional coherence,” Dr Waters says.
“This strange behaviour is not true of the large chromosomes in our genomes.”…
“Astonishingly, the microchromosomes were the same across all bird and reptile species.”
“Even more astonishingly, they were the same as the tiny chromosomes of Amphioxus – a little fish-like animal with no backbone that last shared a common ancestor with vertebrates 684 million years ago.”
UNSW/LA TROBE MEDIA, “The dust specks which are actually the building blocks of our genome” at University of New South Wales (18 October 2021)
Maybe they are the Manufacturer’s basic program…
The findings highlight the need to rethink how we view the human genome.
“Rather than being ‘normal’, chromosomes of humans and other mammals were puffed up with lots of ‘junk DNA’ and scrambled in many different ways,” Prof Graves says.
UNSW/LA TROBE MEDIA, “The dust specks which are actually the building blocks of our genome” at University of New South Wales (18 October 2021)
Or retooled for more complex developments?
Stay tuned. Less and less that we hear from genome mapping is making sense in terms of sturdy traditional materialism.
You may also wish to read: At Mind Matters News: University of Chicago biochemist: All living cells are cognitive Future debates over origins of intelligence, consciousness, etc., may mainly feature panpsychists vs. theists rather than materialists vs. theists.
and
Neuroscientist: Even viruses are intelligent in some sense, Antonio Damasio says, in the excerpt from his new book, that — based on the evidence — we cannot deny viruses “some fraction” of intelligence. Researchers who study viruses, including the one that causes COVID, note similarities between viral strategies and those of insects and animals.