TheStar.com - News - DNA `junk' appears to have uses

I've always wondered if DNA outside the nucleus, like the malformed DNA that causes Creuzfelt-Jakov (mad cow) disease might have other, more basic, effects on how creatures develop.

Then again, I'm an Engineer, Not a Doctor, Dammit!!!!!!

I Love it When I can Mangle a "Dr. McCoy" line.

DNA `junk' appears to have uses

Jun 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Joseph Hall
health reporter

A groundbreaking study says scientists may have to substantially alter their long-held conception of life's basic blueprint, DNA.

In a departure from traditional thinking, the four-year study says that genes can no longer be considered the only active parts of DNA and that huge segments thought to be 'junk' may play a significant role in such individual traits as susceptibility to diseases.

'A lot of these regions that previously we were thinking were junk DNA, or vast deserts of non-functionality, have been found to be a lot more active,' says Steven Jones, associate director of the British Columbia Cancer Agency's Genome Sciences Centre, and one of numerous authors of the scientific paper published today in the journal Nature.

'This was the surprise ... they seem to be doing things from a biological level.'

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