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Weird, since ferns’ fractal growth plan lends itself so well to simple recursion. Maybe most of the genome is just a long comment explaining why they can’t use
by jameshart 2y ago
Weird, since ferns’ fractal growth plan lends itself so well to simple recursion.
Maybe most of the genome is just a long comment explaining why they can’t use recursion.
- pantalaimon 2y agoOr maybe the simple growth plan allowed it to accumulate lots of cruft that’s basically doing nothing
- thfuran 2y agoWe used to think huge amounts of our own genome didn't do anything.
- hollerith 2y agoBut it is true that huge amounts of our genome don't do anything. There are sequences where the same letter or string repeats thousands of times. There are many copies of things that have accumulated mutations that make them non-functional.
- dleeftink 2y agoThe idea that repeated sequences in certain genomes are non-functional or 'junk' is questionable, as they provide additional encapsulation to chromosomes with cell nuclei (a sort of fault tolerance).[0] [0]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1084952122000441 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S108495212...
- timschmidt 2y agoComputer architectures sometimes necessitate no-ops under certain circumstances to facilitate functionality. Even though they're no-ops, they're not useless. To the contrary, they have very specific and required uses, which is why they exist. Evolution works on integrated systems, not parts. Which goes a long way toward explaining why life doesn't seem to have any single-use components - everything serves multiple purposes. We just don't understand them all yet.
- gdrift 2y agoThat hasn't changed. It's still ~90% junk. Total Essential/Functional (so far) = 8.7% Total Junk (so far) = 65% Unknown (probably mostly junk) = 26.3% https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/05/whats-in-your-genome.html https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/02/theme-genomes-junk-dna.html
- ratsmack 2y agoThere's a reason for everything.
- incrudible 2y agoThere is a reason for all the junk in my drawer, but it is still junk.
- lloydatkinson 2y agoIn cases like this why don’t they try grow a fern that only has genes with an identified purpose and go from there?
- idiotsecant 2y agoBiology only cares about elegance when it substantially contributes to fitness, otherwise entropy is the natural way of things!
- nativeit 2y agoIt’s my (very simplistic and layperson) understanding that the size of an organism’s genome is more correlated to how long it has been evolving, rather than any specific complexity of the organism. Since ferns are one of the oldest organisms known to science, it makes sense that their genome would be relatively large. I don’t remember when/where I heard this, it may very well be BS.