Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Psalm 139:14 NLT
"If you Google the phrase “junk DNA,” a lot of what you get are acknowledgements that non-coding DNA is not the garbage dump it was once assumed to be. The garbage dump theory was a logical and straightforward prediction in line with evolutionary expectations. That is, if evolution is an unguided process fueled by random mutations.
Instead, the “garbage” is full of “hidden treasures.” You don’t have to take our word for it.
EN&V
Psalm 139:14 NLT
"If you Google the phrase “junk DNA,” a lot of what you get are acknowledgements that non-coding DNA is not the garbage dump it was once assumed to be. The garbage dump theory was a logical and straightforward prediction in line with evolutionary expectations. That is, if evolution is an unguided process fueled by random mutations.
Instead, the “garbage” is full of “hidden treasures.” You don’t have to take our word for it.
- “Hidden Treasures in Junk DNA” (Scientific American)
- “Junk DNA — Not So Useless After All” (Time Magazine)
- “Breakthrough study overturns theory of ‘junk DNA’ in genome” (The Guardian)
- “Some DNA Dismissed As ‘Junk’ Is Crucial To Embryo Development” (NPR)
- “ENCODE Project Writes Eulogy for Junk DNA” (Science)
- “Junk DNA Isn’t Junk, and That Isn’t Really News” (Smithsonian.com)
- “DNA previously written off as ‘junk’ actually determines genitals at birth” (The Independent)
News from Princeton
Now comes news from scientists at Princeton University who have captured on video “junk DNA” at work. Its job? In “real time” they show the function of an enhancer in switching a gene from off to on. From “Imaging in living cells reveals how ‘junk DNA’ switches on a gene”: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 turn on or off genes. But how these segments of DNA, called enhancers, findThere’s no sound track, but if there were, it might be a grumble of protest from ultra-Darwinists as they’re forced back from a once beloved evolutionary icon."
and activate a target gene in the crowded environment of a cell’s nucleus is not well understood.
Now a team led by researchers at Princeton University has captured how this happens in living cells. The video allows researchers to see the enhancers as they find and connect to a gene to kick-start its activity.
Analyses of how enhancers activate genes can aid in the understanding of normal development, when even small genetic missteps can result in birth defects. The timing of gene activation also is important in the development of many diseases including cancer.
EN&V