5 ms·
Presumably there is a cost to carrying the DNA, if it gets removed by chance and the cost was high enough the useless part will disappear. That however hinges
by baruch 5y ago
Presumably there is a cost to carrying the DNA, if it gets removed by chance and the cost was high enough the useless part will disappear.
That however hinges on the cost being high enough, if the cost is negligible then there is no real pressure either way.
- dekhn 5y agothis cost of "DNA size" is a long and ongoing argument in biology with no clear answer. Here's the strongest straw man argument in favor of "there are large amounts of non-funcitonal DNA which has zero evolutionary cost": https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(12)01154-2.pdf https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(12)01154...