DNA is a Chain-gang of Genes - Chained to a Common Chance of Salvation!

[PanAtheist]

lostsheep wrote

Awesome pic BTW...hope to read the article soon...keep posting cool stuff thanks

Thanks for the appreciation.
I have to tell you though, my time for posting here is vanishing rapidly.
And I can't expect to be posting much here (beyond the brainlessly frivolously brief ) in the weeks ahead.

It's "arrivederci" time again.

Steel wrote

Will someone help me

How about you take a periodic table (with the atomic weights), add a dash of CaCl2 and H2O, and shake it up with a bit of algebra, and who knows what you might get!
(That's all you'll be getting from me, anyway!)

[PanAtheist]

A very interesting article (which relates to jumping genes, which are talked about above) is in the new scientist this week:
I, virus: Why you're only half human

Key human genome stats mentioned:
1.5% of the DNA of our human genome, are human genes. Just 1.5% !!
9% of our DNA is viral DNA, now incorporated into our genome.
34% of our DNA is of retrotransposon origin (these are a class of jumping genes).
The remainder of our DNA is, as now, of unknown origin and function.

It is fun to know that some crucial human genes - vital in functioning of the placenta, for example - were originally viral genes: including one that once coded for a protein of the viral envelope. These viral genes have become part of the human gene team.

I am keen to read the author's book too.
I wish I had more time!


http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book...123/Virolution

(The Selfish Gene-wank on the cover had originally put me off, when I saw it in the bookshop when it first came out! )

[PanAtheist]

PanAtheist wrote

... junk DNA is made of selfish genes and the mutated remains thereof.

There is evidence that we inherited a batch of parasitic self-replicating DNA sequences when the complex (eukaryotic) cell evolved. The bacteria that became our mitochondria (subcellular power stations of the eukaryotic cells) had jumping self-replicating genes in their DNA, and these genes jumped into our main genome, and replicated their selves throughout it. I think 50% of our genome is now made up of this infestation.

If you want to read more, there's a chapter in the excellent
Life Ascending : The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, by Nick Lane

Life Ascending has won the Royal Society's Science Book Prize 2010.

Maggie Philbin, chair of the Judges, explained why they felt Life Ascending was a deserving winner. "Science writing shouldn't patronise readers, it should help them to develop their scientific thinking and apply it to the world around them, something exemplified by this wonderful and engaging book."