Billion year old genetic ghosts?? Watching a couple of geneticists

[HysteryDiagnosis]

I suppose today on the telly who emphatically stated that the genes for a tail, scales and teeth in a chicken or an emu are still there and viable. They proved this claim by adding proteins to chicken eggs and seeing additional vertebrae, the beginnings of teeth and so forth in these embryos. The idea is to take an Emu perhaps and create a present day dinosaur.... it was an amazing show, wish I caught the names of the researchers or the name of the program itself.

These guys are dead serious and I'm wondering how the world will react to such experiments if they are successful.

[Warpy]

1. Junk DNA is turning out to be anything but junk

since it carries the code for adaptations that might have been successful in the past and might again be successful in the future. The same is true of plant DNA.

While the program you saw today is highly speculative, given the infancy our DNA research is still in, someday it might be possible.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. "Junk DNA"..... like a 57 chevy could be considered junk unless of

course it was in working order....

ever hear or read about the DNA phantom effect?? Interesting stuff if there is anything to it. Makes me wonder just how much "evolution/creation" could have been, might have been electromagnetically affected/effected.

http://www.emergentmind.org/gariaev06.htm

1. Genetics and its problems



“Central dogma” of genetics



The genetic apparatus of every organism on Earth, including humans, consists of chromosomes, where all genetic information of an organism, such as DNA or RNA, is stored. The paradigm or “Central dogma” of genetics and molecular biology states that:

1) The genetic apparatus operates as a purely material structure.

2) All the functions of genetic control of an organism are localized in approximately 2% of DNA, the so called coding DNA of an organism. The remaining 98% of the genetic apparatus code for nothing, and are garbage or junk DNA, which mainly represents a graveyard of virus DNA.

The 2% coding DNA code for proteins and RNA. Note however that the genes of a human, a fly, a warm or a plant are almost indistinguishable.

[miyazaki]

2. '60 Minutes' had a premise on this 2-3 weeks ago. n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. What if some of this dna could be activated by means which we

know absolutely nothing about?? Nature is supposed to do away with the unnecessary so I'm a wonderin' if the 98% of our "junk" dna may have a future purpose.

[trotsky]

6. What principle says "Nature is supposed to do away with the unnecessary"?

And why did you have to ruin a thread that MAY have had some legitimate discourse with a bunch o' woo?

[TZ]

10. 98% of our genes our NOT junk

This so called "central dogma" of genetics has long been known to be untrue (your paper sounds like someone out to prove that they are the sole creative thinker in genetics and everyone else is closed minded. I get suspicious of these...there is usually a personal agenda involved).

What has been discovered though is genetics is much more than a simple genetic code...It seems that identical genes can express themselves differently in different types of environments. Some of these genes are only active at certain points of life. But that doesn't mean they are "junk".
While the entire genome has been decoded, the patterns of expression is still not well understood. Thats why even though some animals have similar genetics they are very different from us.
And actually a lot of work in cancer research is geared towards how genes express themselves because more and more it seems that the keys to fighting off diseases like cancer is looking at how the genes themselves contribute.

[struggle4progress]

5. Ask: how many million years ago did ancestors of birds last have teeth? Since then, any

unexpressed genes have been mutating at a regular rate, without any evolutionary control. It is generally considered that most mutations of expressed genes are harmfully, in the sense that they do not contribute to the fitness of the organism. Of course, mutations to an unexpressed gene are neither beneficial or harmful: they are simply changes; but these changes are not extirpated by evolutionary forces and therefore accumulate. DNA codes for proteins, such as enzymes: a point mutation in an enzyme code will affect folding and hence is likely to make the enzyme dysfunctional; several point mutations are likely to inactivate the enzyme completely. Conclusion: any vestigal DNA that once coded for something but has not been expressed for millions of years is unlikely to still carry code for useful features if it were expressed

[Ready4Change]

7. DNA sounds more and more like a Hard Disk.

Segments are 'deleted' simply by removing references to them. After a while the disk is chock full of old fragments, from which useful info can be gleaned if you are clever and thorough.

Any geneticists here? I've always thought mutations were tiny single flaws in the DNA sequence. But this makes me wonder if, from time to time, a mutation causes some of these old 'junk' segments to get reconnected?

[BadgerKid]

8. You've got it.

There can be single mutations that cause disease, e.g. sickle cell anemia.
There can be deletions from DNA hence proteins.
Radiation can cause DNA damage (think cancer derived from intense sunlight exposure).
Genes can be shuffled around or even flipped forwards-to-backwards within DNA.
Genes can be repeated.
Genes can be introduced within other genes.
I'm sure there are a few others.

Loosely speaking, the copying of DNA is generally done very well by biology as there is a built-in self-correcting mechanism. However, the motions of molecules are subject to just a tiny bit of randomness, which allows errors to enter at a small rate. If these mutations kill the organism, game's over. If they don't kill the organism and the organism reproduces, you've got evolution.

[phantom power]

9. Many of our genes are part of the "regulome" -- their job is to...

turn other genes on and off. So, mutations of various kinds can disable or re-enable or re-organize large components of an organism.

If you want a couple layman books on this topic, I really liked these two:

Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo
The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwins Dilemma

[marginlized]

11. for further reading

The scientists you were watching probably included Jack Horner, author of "How to Build a Dinosaur". He reviews all the current research which demonstrate that the genes for teeth and a bony tail are still in a chicken's DNA. He outlines and covers all the relevant bases for further proposed research including the animal research ethics. However, he is under no illusion that the result of any of this research would actually be a dinosaur. He simply claims that it would be an animal that looks like one.