This is what John Mattick (from U. Queensland) has been talking about all these years. Its sweet to observe heretic science becoming mainstream :)
Cheers On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 04:22:06PM -0700, Roger Critchlow wrote: > Nature 447, 799-816 - Identification and analysis of functional > elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project. > > Here are some of their highlights in their own words: > > - The human genome is pervasively transcribed, such that the > majority of its bases are associated with at least one primary > transcript and many transcripts link distal regions to established > protein-coding loci. > > - Many novel non-protein-coding transcripts have been identified, > with many of these overlapping protein-coding loci and others located > in regions of the genome previously thought to be transcriptionally > silent. > > - A total of 5% of the bases in the genome can be confidently > identified as being under evolutionary constraint in mammals; for > approximately 60% of these constrained bases, there is evidence of > function on the basis of the results of the experimental assays > performed to date. > > - Surprisingly, many functional elements are seemingly unconstrained > across mammalian evolution. This suggests the possibility of a large > pool of neutral elements that are biochemically active but provide no > specific benefit to the organism. This pool may serve as a 'warehouse' > for natural selection, potentially acting as the source of > lineage-specific elements and functionally conserved but > non-orthologous elements between species. > > So, there is no junk DNA, there is no silent DNA, 40% of what's being > evolutionarily constrained has no known function, some of what > appeared to have a known function is apparently free to change across > all known mammal genomes. > > That's 4 of the 11 highlights. > > -- rec -- > > On 6/15/07, Carl Tollander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I may have mentioned this morning that this is probably important: > > http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/13465/print > > > > Carl > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
