DNA: Less Junk Than Was Thought?
We have discovered a "book" written in an unfamiliar language. We have nothing in common culturally with the authors. In fact, the authors aren't even human. Except for occasional "periods" and start-reading-here "marks," there is no punctuation. There are no breaks betweenthewords.
But because this book is so important teams of interpreters have been pouring over the "book" for years. The interpreters have discovered that the authors were linguistic pack-rats - "cutting" and "pasting" as needed, and often failing to delete unused passages. So, much of the "book" has been found to be gibberish - especially those parts between a "period" and a start-reading-here mark. But other parts have been thought to be meaningless too.
Most of the interpreters have been studying the book in isolation - they've never actually used the language practically. And so it's not surprising to learn that we've been underestimating the amount of useful information in the "book."
Scientists studying the
Drosophila melanogaster fly genome have found approximately 2,600 additional genes than were previously known by combining
in silico (raw computer data) with "wet biology" (practical use of the language).
One problem with the old method was that scientists were looking for genes that coded for proteins that were already known (and perhaps are common to many species). This new method leads to the discovery of new genes, AND new proteins.
Posted by Stephen Gordon at February 15, 2004 08:39 AM
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