One of the biggest fails in the history of science is smoothed out by PR:
“Genomes hold immense quantities of noncoding DNA. Some of it is essential for life, some seems useless, and some has its own agenda.” …
Cells use some of their noncoding DNA to create a diverse menagerie of RNA molecules that regulate or assist with protein production in various ways. The catalog of these molecules keeps expanding, with small nuclear RNAs, microRNAs, small interfering RNAs and many more. Some are short segments, typically less than two dozen base pairs long, while others are an order of magnitude longer. Some exist as double strands or fold back on themselves in hairpin loops. But all of them can bind selectively to a target, such as a messenger RNA transcript, to either promote or inhibit its translation into protein.
These RNAs can have substantial effects on an organism’s well-being. Experimental shutdowns of certain microRNAs in mice, for instance, have induced disorders ranging from tremors to liver dysfunction.
By far the biggest category of noncoding DNA in the genomes of humans and many other organisms consists of transposons, segments of DNA that can change their location within a genome.
Jake Buehler, “The Complex Truth About ‘Junk DNA’” at Quanta Magazine (September 1, 2021)
You may also wish to read: The Myth of Junk DNA
and
Junk DNA defender just isn’t doing politeness any more.