There's nothing at all new about that finding whatsoever. Introns in
DNA are suspected of playing a widespread role in gene regulation and
expression, and the stabilization of higher scale chromatin
structure. Introns, or junk DNA, are conserved enough in the genome
that if they didn't serve some role, they would be tossed out as a
species evolved. What's not needed or superfluous is selected against
in the evolutionary sense of the word.
Scientific American, if you'll excuse me, is just one step removed
from a laymans magazine. It's largely a science magazine for people
not involved actively in a scientific field in order to give them a
less technical overview of recent developments. For example I might
read it for physics stories since I myself am not a physicist, and if
I read the latest issues of Physical Review Letters, I likely
wouldn't make heads or tails of the research since my degrees aren't
in the field.
I'm a molecular biologist, genetic manipulation is my job. And the
scientific american article there, trust me, is nothing new or
earthshattering.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with the chances of making
furries, or using gene splicing techniques at all. Inserting and
manipulating genes are run of the mill work for me. Though the idea
of 'making furries' using modern genetics is a bit more complicated
than you might think. Don't expect it anytime soon, though there's
nothing in the technical department to rule it out or say its
impossible. The argument is a bit too long to get involved with here.
Wes
--- In SkunkworksAMA_at_yahoogroups.com, "Brandon Payne"
<payne_brandon_at_y...> wrote:
> Then how do you explain this one mouse I saw on the news one time
> that was genetically engineered with human DNA? It was doing very
> well at that time. Although it looked like any other mouse,
> technically, it was 1% human.
>
> -Brandon Payne
>
>
> --- In SkunkworksAMA_at_yahoogroups.com, "furskunk" <mistwing@e...>
> wrote:
> > 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 Tue Nov 04 2003 - 15:20:04 CST