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No, it really hasn't been. Projects like ENCODE which claimed that 80% of the human genome was functional were done in ignorance of genomes of other organisms.
by jhbadger 9y ago
No, it really hasn't been. Projects like ENCODE which claimed that 80% of the human genome was functional were done in ignorance of genomes of other organisms. There are animals like the pufferfish that have almost no junk DNA. And there are amoebas with more junk DNA than do humans. If junk DNA was in general functional, this would not be the case.
- monocasa 9y agoI mean, 'junk' DNA is just the noncoding regions. It contains everything that would look like a conditional jump to us CS folks, or a gate to EE folks. The coding regions are closer to .rodata; literally tables of the protein chains. The relative lack of non coding DNA in other, simpler cells doesn't tell us that we don't need ours. It's equally possible that our DNA is just making significantly more dynamic decisions.
- jhbadger 9y agoBut the fact that some have more non-coding DNA doesn't really fit that idea. Unless you think amoebas are secret masters of the world. The simplest explanation is still that it is neutral baggage of neither benefit nor hindrance and organisms can gain or lose it by chance.
- monocasa 9y agoOr their strategy is to generate proteins with less of a concern for how their environment is dynamically changing. Which more aligns with single celled and very simple animals. And it's not necessarily that they have more coding regions. It's that they have a greater percentage vs noncoding. It's a proportional thing.