It would appear that"junk DNA's" days are all but numbered. Scientist have been puzzled for years by long strands of DNA that seem to have no purpose, doing noting at all. The standing opinion was that it was material from the early days of our evolution and has been "turned off".
Now after ten years of research, over 400 scientists in 32 laboratories from around the globe working on a project called Encode have announced that they have found what the "silent" DNA strands do. It seems the here to fore called "junk" DNA strands are the cell's "decision makers". These strands decide which genes are to be activated for protein production and which get turned off.
What is even more astounding is the amount of these decision maker DNA strands to specific genes! There are an average of a million for ever 23,000 genes or a ratio of apx. 50 - 1!
And even more astounding is treatments which traditionally have targeted genes. Now treatments that influence the decision makers to do the work for us.
For more, read Kent Sepkowts's article in the September 17th 2012 issue of Newsweek.
