From: Marc Ramirez <mrami@mramirez.sy.yale.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 15:05:57 +0800
To: "Ed Carp (ecarp@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: EXON
In-Reply-To: <199512122017.OAA20584@khijol>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.951212235421.4704A-100000@mramirez.sy.yale.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Tue, 12 Dec 1995, Ed Carp (ecarp@netcom.com) wrote:

> > From:          Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
> >
> > (There is some controversy in molecular biology circles as to whether 
> > "junk DNA" is really "junk" just because it doesn't build proteins. It 
> > could perform a regulatory or "frame-check" function.)
> 
> Actually, I think that once the matter is further studied, scientists 
> will discover that the "junk DNA" is not junk, but inactive DNA, 
> waiting for a "trigger".

Well, there are a couple of interesting things:

	o mutations in non-coding sequences are known to cause certain
	  flavors of cancer, and

	o the amount of redundancy in exons is rather high in comparison
	  to the coding sequences (much like other Exons we know :),
	  approaching that of other naturally arising degradation-resistant
	  signals, such as human language. 

So the signs as of right now are definitely pointing to exons having some 
purpose.  The problem is that exons usually lay outside the start and 
stop sequences, so nobody knows how they are read, which makes it hard to 
give them an interpretation.

Marc.

ObCrypto: Store your private key in your non-coding DNA?  If we all did
that would the Red Cross become the national voluntary key escrow agent? 
Would that actually be good because then they would mislabel all they keys
and destroy half of the lot in the process of collection? If cancerous 
cells had PGP keys, would the immune system destroy them or just detain 
them for a really long time until they withered away of malnutrition and 
stress?  Should I go to bed?