Back in August, there was a lot of talk here about genetics and
furries. I don't know if this lastest news from Scientific American
was reported here (I hope not). But I thought that some of you at
least, might be interested.
About 98% of human DNA is 'so-called' junk DNS since it doesn't
produce any proteins. Well, it now turns out that the 'junk' isn't
so junky after all. Some, possibly most, of it actually does stuff.
Genetisists became suspicious when a lot of the 'junk' was identical
across species lines. They became convinced when a certain strain of
mice died when a random gene splice cut across a 'junk' portion. It
turns out that there is a lot of other (non-gene-producing) stuff
going on there.
And not just in the DNA itself. Next month's issue will talk about
how the DNA neighborhood itself can influence things.
All in all, it looks like it's going to be a bit tougher to make
furries using genetics than we thought it would be.
MistWing SilverTail
Received on Mon Nov 03 2003 - 15:04:08 CST