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Rarely is human genetics this simple. For ages geneticists thought large swaths of the human genome were "junk" and over time more and more of it has been prove

Rarely is human genetics this simple. For ages geneticists thought large swaths of the human genome were "junk" and over time more and more of it has been proven to have a purpose or function, it just wasn't readily apparent for various reasons. Think of the human genome as sort of the ultimate dependency hell...

npstr 3y ago
Nature does not refactor. There's the laryngeal nerve somewhere in the neck of mammals that has to go around a blood vessel. On Giraffes, this runs all the way down the neck, around said blood vessel, than back up, all that just to connect two places in the upper neck that are inches apart. Evolution writes the ultimate spaghetti code. More info: https://berto-meister.blogspot.com/2011/08/unintelligent-design-giraffes-laryngeal.html https://berto-meister.blogspot.com/2011/08/unintelligent-des...
- xeonmc 3y ago
  God must be a frontend developer.
  - linux2647 3y ago
    Or hacked it all together in Perl: https://xkcd.com/224/ https://xkcd.com/224/
  - joshuamcginnis 3y ago
    He's definitely full stack.
- temporalparts 3y ago
  Nature rarely* refactors. Sometimes random mutations refactors, which leads to efficiencies which leads to evolutionary advantages. If nature doesn't refactor, then why are there so many crabs?
  - xeonmc 3y ago
    Clearly refactored for memory safety.
    - stult 3y ago
      Hence C laws
  - dtech 3y ago
    There are many crabs because of convergent evolution, in this analogy that has nothing to do with refactoring. That is more similar to competing products having a lot of the same features.
- kirubakaran 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/cO1a1Ek-HD0?si=H6X6ICZQLbq_s41C https://youtu.be/cO1a1Ek-HD0?si=H6X6ICZQLbq_s41C The famous Richard Dawkins video about that (4min long)
- Grimblewald 3y ago
  noodly its appendage, sphagetti its code, in its image we are made, amen.
  - Phemist 3y ago
    *ramen
- loud_cloud 3y ago
  "Octopus throat runs through brain" and the "blood supply in FRONT of the retina cones n rods" were the other 2 that are often mentioned.
- username3 3y ago
  [flagged]
- dingdingdang 3y ago
  Nature does not refactor, except when it does as in the case of going from 48 to 46 chromosomes (great apes->humans). Nice write-up and slightly novel hypothesis at: https://molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13039-016-0283-3 https://molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
- ItCouldBeWorse 3y ago
  Nature hires a million devs and then kills the project if they do not hit a deadline.Nature mixes it up with sex and creatures hunting one another. There are no chill moments.
- water-data-dude 3y ago
  Early developmental biology (by “early” I mean early pregnancy) is the shit you Do Not Touch. Each step of development is highly dependent on the previous steps (assuming this bit’s here, that bit’s there, etc.). If you make a change it’s extremely likely to be fatal or have negative consequences like birth defects, and the likelihood of a bad outcome climbs steeply as you move the change earlier and earlier in the process. That’s why pretty much every animal - humans, tigers, whales, lizards - looks the same when they’re a teeny tiny little fetus. My example is testicles! Testicles begin in the same place as ovaries, which made a lot of sense back when we were coldblooded! Having a pair of balls dangling in a soft pouch between your legs isn’t a strategy you adopt if you can help it. In the alternate timeline where lizard people rose to dominate the earth instead of humans they don’t have “Ouch, I’ve been hit in the balls!” humor. But the testicles form next to the kidneys early on in the developmental process (and as we’ve established, you don’t fuck with those stages), so they have to migrate south VERY late in the development! Because they SCHLOOP on down after everything else is pretty much in place, it weakens the abdominal wall, which is why men are more prone to certain types of hernias than women are.
Zetobal 3y ago
There still is a lot of non-coding dna in there.
- 3seashells 3y ago
  [dead]
- samus 3y ago
  If it didn't fulfil a function, then random mutations and deletions during Meiosis would quite quickly get rid of it. Even if it only serves to support the structure of chromosomes or some similarly arcane purpose that we will only discover in a decade or so, it still has a function.

npstr 3y ago

Nature does not refactor. There's the laryngeal nerve somewhere in the neck of mammals that has to go around a blood vessel. On Giraffes, this runs all the way down the neck, around said blood vessel, than back up, all that just to connect two places in the upper neck that are inches apart. Evolution writes the ultimate spaghetti code. More info: https://berto-meister.blogspot.com/2011/08/unintelligent-design-giraffes-laryngeal.html https://berto-meister.blogspot.com/2011/08/unintelligent-des...

xeonmc 3y ago
God must be a frontend developer.
- linux2647 3y ago
  Or hacked it all together in Perl: https://xkcd.com/224/ https://xkcd.com/224/
- joshuamcginnis 3y ago
  He's definitely full stack.
temporalparts 3y ago
Nature rarely* refactors. Sometimes random mutations refactors, which leads to efficiencies which leads to evolutionary advantages. If nature doesn't refactor, then why are there so many crabs?
- xeonmc 3y ago
  Clearly refactored for memory safety.
  - stult 3y ago
    Hence C laws
- dtech 3y ago
  There are many crabs because of convergent evolution, in this analogy that has nothing to do with refactoring. That is more similar to competing products having a lot of the same features.
kirubakaran 3y ago
https://youtu.be/cO1a1Ek-HD0?si=H6X6ICZQLbq_s41C https://youtu.be/cO1a1Ek-HD0?si=H6X6ICZQLbq_s41C The famous Richard Dawkins video about that (4min long)
Grimblewald 3y ago
noodly its appendage, sphagetti its code, in its image we are made, amen.
- Phemist 3y ago
  *ramen
loud_cloud 3y ago
"Octopus throat runs through brain" and the "blood supply in FRONT of the retina cones n rods" were the other 2 that are often mentioned.
username3 3y ago
[flagged]
dingdingdang 3y ago
Nature does not refactor, except when it does as in the case of going from 48 to 46 chromosomes (great apes->humans). Nice write-up and slightly novel hypothesis at: https://molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13039-016-0283-3 https://molecularcytogenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
ItCouldBeWorse 3y ago
Nature hires a million devs and then kills the project if they do not hit a deadline.Nature mixes it up with sex and creatures hunting one another. There are no chill moments.
water-data-dude 3y ago
Early developmental biology (by “early” I mean early pregnancy) is the shit you Do Not Touch. Each step of development is highly dependent on the previous steps (assuming this bit’s here, that bit’s there, etc.). If you make a change it’s extremely likely to be fatal or have negative consequences like birth defects, and the likelihood of a bad outcome climbs steeply as you move the change earlier and earlier in the process. That’s why pretty much every animal - humans, tigers, whales, lizards - looks the same when they’re a teeny tiny little fetus. My example is testicles! Testicles begin in the same place as ovaries, which made a lot of sense back when we were coldblooded! Having a pair of balls dangling in a soft pouch between your legs isn’t a strategy you adopt if you can help it. In the alternate timeline where lizard people rose to dominate the earth instead of humans they don’t have “Ouch, I’ve been hit in the balls!” humor. But the testicles form next to the kidneys early on in the developmental process (and as we’ve established, you don’t fuck with those stages), so they have to migrate south VERY late in the development! Because they SCHLOOP on down after everything else is pretty much in place, it weakens the abdominal wall, which is why men are more prone to certain types of hernias than women are.

Zetobal 3y ago

There still is a lot of non-coding dna in there.

3seashells 3y ago
[dead]
samus 3y ago
If it didn't fulfil a function, then random mutations and deletions during Meiosis would quite quickly get rid of it. Even if it only serves to support the structure of chromosomes or some similarly arcane purpose that we will only discover in a decade or so, it still has a function.