Junk DNA.

DNA 's mysteries.

I'm going to present you with, well... DNA. However, I'm not going to discuss what it is, and does.
I'm going to tell you something about the hidden side of DNA, its secrets, so to say.

I'd like to apologize up front for the simple way I present DNA. I am not a molecular biologist, and if I'm going to use all those fancy scientific words, I don't think many of you will understand or just click away. But... most of all because I just don't know anything about DNA, so...

First I'll introduce you all to DNA and what we today know about it. I think you should know what DNA is before I'll present to you what it could also be.

DNA was first isolated by the Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher who, in 1869, discovered a microscopic substance in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. As it resided in the nuclei of cells, he called it "nuclein". In 1919, Phoebus Levene identified the base, sugar and phosphate nucleotide unit.Levene suggested that DNA consisted of a string of nucleotide units linked together through the phosphate groups. However, Levene thought the chain was short and the bases repeated in a fixed order. In 1937 William Astbury produced the first X-ray diffraction patterns that showed that DNA had a regular structure.

This, and everything about DNA you can read in the following link.

Source. ( WIKI )

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ef7d059c2530.jpg[/atsimg]

And here: What is DNA.

Our DNA is made up from a double helix, as you can see in the above picture.
There is only one form of DNA known to us that has a triple helix. The E-Coli bacteria. But, only when a specific enzyme is activated.
But… You can also watch this video that gives you the very short and easy explanation .


Together with all of the science there are also people that think DNA shows all the signs of being a language.

All Languages and Codes Have Four Components

Regardless of what kind of communication we are talking about those four things are present in that communication. Alphabet, grammar, meaning and intent. And nearly all languages have error correction or redundancy.

English is about 50% redundant, which means if you're talking on your cell phone and its cutting in and out and in and out, if you can hear every word you can still pretty much figure out what's being said. If you lose more than that you really can't.

Where does redundancy come from? If you take a word out, you can fill it in from the context. Your mind can fill in the difference. Most of you never thought of this, but in when you're on the internet or getting and receiving emails there's a whole collection of mechanisms that are put in the communication back and forth to ensure that errors are corrected before they get to you. This is common to almost all languages.

Is DNA a pattern? Or is it a language?

DNA is an encoding and decoding system. DNA molecule represents more than itself; it represents an entire living organism. It doesn't just represent Adenine. It represents you or it represents a rabbit or a squirrel or a snake.

It has alphabet and syntax and semantics and pragmatics, or to use less technical terms alphabet, grammar, meaning and intent. It can be copied and even stored in other media with no loss of information.

I used to work for a company that made DNA sequencers. Their machines would go through and figure out what all the letters were in a strand of DNA. You could store that on a computer disk, and somebody in the lab could take the right chemicals and they could put those back and they could end up with a clone of the organism. Because the information in DNA is information is something distinct and separate from whatever it is stored in.

Now, that is something I think is pretty interesting. Don't you ?

The following picture is simplified, and names the specific components.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/069f16ba95ae.jpg[/atsimg]

Components of DNA

So the bridge between the edges of the helix is made of a combination of four chemicals, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine. Which I will abbreviate as A, T, C and G. Those are the letters of the DNA alphabet. A, C, T, and G encode all information necessary for life. In the simplest tiny microorganisms it takes 500,000 letters to represent a living organism. It takes five hundred thousand A's, or C's, or T's, or G's.

In a human it takes three billion (3,000,000,000) of those letters to represents a copy of you, and there is one of those three billion letter messages inside every cell in your body. (By the way modern technology, to date, has not produced an information storage mechanism that is more dense than DNA.) All the information in your hard drive is a lot bulkier than the information in your cells.

So DNA is not just a molecule, DNA is a language. It is actually very comparable to English and human languages in the way that it is structured. Here is a little chart and it shows the comparison between human languages and DNA. The nucleotide is the A, T, C, G.

DNA Language -Human Language

-Nucleotide -Character

-Codon -Letter

-Gene -Word

-Operon -Sentence

-Regulon -Paragraph


DNA is encoding, decoding mechanism that stores and transmits the message of the living organism. Biologists have actually been using linguistic analysis to decode the human genome. Tools that we must use to analyze languages are continually being used to figure out what all of those genes actually mean.

So if you read some article in the newspaper it says we found a gene that causes Spina Bifida or something like that, some kind of linguistic analysis was used to help figure that out.

Source.

I found this all on a creationist website. I do not want to debate evolution or creationism because I think that it is a silly and pointless waste of time.

The reason form me to post it is , in modern day science, Quantum Physics it is , in theory, possible that our DNA holds indeed a communication device.
You can think of a holographic universe, or maybe a sentient universe. Well, that would make it god-like doesn't it ?

A little introduction for those who have never heard of what I saying here.


One word of advice. Don't believe everything you hear. This is part one of around 20 shows and they go way floaty past number 9, if I'm correct. But... It is fun to watch and therefore I do recommend watching it.


Junk DNA

About 97 % of our DNA is considered garbage by some.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e0a83f207aad.jpg[/atsimg]

Presently, only the function of a few percent of the DNA is known, the rest has been believed to be useless garbage, commonly called "Junk DNA" by molecular biologists.

Increasing evidence is now indicating that this DNA is not "junk" at all. Especially, it has been found to have various regulatory roles. This means that this so-called "non-coding DNA" influences the behavior of the genes, the "coding DNA", in important ways.

Source.

You've probably heard of a molecule called DNA, otherwise known as "The Blueprint Of Life". Molecular biologists have been examining and mapping the DNA for a few decades now. But as they've looked more closely at the DNA, they've been getting increasingly bothered by one inconvenient little fact - the fact that 97% of the DNA is junk, and it has no known use or function! But, an usual collaboration between molecular biologists, cryptoanalysists (people who break secret codes), linguists (people who study languages) and physicists, has found strange hints of a hidden language in this so- called "junk DNA".

And that is not all. In this particular scientific article they are also suggesting that this junk DNA includes or is a language. How about that ?

So the scientists looked at a very long bit of DNA, and made artificial words by breaking up the DNA into "words" each 3 rungs long. And then they tried it again for "words" 4 rungs long, 5 rungs long, and so on up to 8 rungs long. They then analysed all these words, and to their surprise, they got the same sort of Zipf Law/straight-line-graph for the human DNA (which is mostly introns), as they did for the human languages!

There seems to be some sort of language buried in the so-called junk DNA! Certainly, the next few years will be a very good time to make a career change into the field of genetics.

Source : ABC Science. ( 2001 )

Continued in the following post.

Continuation of the opening post.

Junk DNA is also called "non coding DNA"

The function of over 95 percent of our DNA is still a mystery. That is, we have spelled out the code, but have discovered that most of it does not code for proteins. Genes can be separated by a vast desert of noncoding DNA, which is sometimes called “junk” DNA. But is it useless? Probably not, because included among noncoding sequences are the crucial promoter regions which control when genes are turned on or off.

The human genome has more noncoding DNA than any other animal known to date and it is not clear why. At least half of the noncoding sequence is made up of recognizable repeated sequences, some of which were inserted by viruses in the past. These repeats may provide some genomic wiggle room. That is, long stretches of noncoding DNA provide a playground for evolution. It may be a huge selective advantage to have all that raw material available to mutate and eithermodify existing traits and behaviors or express new ones all together. Humans are characterized by the ability to be flexible and to adapt quickly, so our junk DNA is potentially a priceless contribution to our humanness.

Source.

Now this is something to think about. Raw material for future evolution ? Quick adaptation ?
I agree that must be a priceless advantage. What strikes me most is that humans have the most junk DNA then any other known animal. This could be the reason why we, with our puny physical strength, speed and tenderness, have been able to survive and work ourselves to the top of the food chain.

Another article where junk DNA is given credit for who we are.
'Junk' DNA gets credit for making us who we are

A video about what junk DNA actually is.


The video is attacking creationism which you have to forget for as long as this thread last. Please ?

Amazing revelations about DNA

As scientists began to decode the human DNA molecule, they found something quite unexpected—an exquisite 'language' composed of some 3 billion genetic letters. "One of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century," says Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., "was that DNA actually stores information—the detailed instructions for assembling proteins—in the form of a four-character digital code" (quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004, p. 224).

It is hard to fathom, but the amount of information in human DNA is roughly equivalent to 12 sets of The Encyclopaedia Britannica—an incredible 384 volumes" worth of detailed information that would fill 48 feet of library shelves!

Yet in their actual size—which is only two millionths of a millimeter thick—a teaspoon of DNA, according to molecular biologist Michael Denton, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth, and "there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1996, p. 334).

Who or what could miniaturize such information and place this enormous number of 'letters' in their proper sequence as a genetic instruction manual? Could evolution have gradually come up with a system like this?

Source.


Another link where you will read about the DNA language. It says it is a code, not binary but still digital.
Source.

Of course I will also provide you with the opposite view.

DNA is not a language.

However, DNA is not a language, in any sense, because it does not represent concepts or meanings, a language entails that abstracts represent concretes, such as a number 5 written on a piece of paper, which has “meaning” to an entity which can understand what “5” means. Nothing analogous is found in DNA, since it is only a substitution cipher, which represents the order of amino acids in a protein, or RNA nucleotides in an RNA molecule. There is no abstract representation or assigned meaning going on with a direct physical substitution cipher, like DNA. When a stop codon orders a ribosome to stop transcribing, the ribosome does not “understand” that it has to stop transcribing, because it is just a ribosome. Nor does the nascent polypeptide “understand” that it is being hydrolyzed. Nor do tRNA “understand” that they must bind to their respective codons on mRNA. There is no transmission of conscious understanding, no abstract communication that entails one entity interprets symbols because it has the same understanding as the entity which communicated them. In this regard, DNA is not a language by definition. All that is happening is that the stop codon does not contain the binding site for any tRNA, but it does contain the binding site for the release factors which terminates translation because it causes the nascent polypeptide to hydrolyze an ester bond as they catalyze this hydrolysis reaction and release from the subunits of the ribosome.

Source.


I personally don't see why the above explanation proves that there is no language. Halve of it I don't understand. The other halve... I don't think they should wave awy the possibility so fast.
There are clearly signs that our world includes a part where we know little or anything about.

Maybe some day we will. For now, I'd like to believe in all the fairy tales which are or can not be proven. Imagination is one of the most important things in life, it lets us think of new ways, new techniques, and "explore strange new worlds and lets us go where no man has gone before".

The E.T. explanation ?

"Our hypothesis is that a higher extraterrestrial life form was engaged in creating new life and planting it on various planets. Earth is just one of them. Perhaps, after programming, our creators grow us the same way we grow bacteria in Petri dishes. We can’t know their motives - whether it was a scientific experiment, or a way of preparing new planets for colonization, or is it long time ongoing business of seedling life in the universe. If we think about it in our human terms, the extraterrestrial programmers were most probably working on one big code consisting of several projects, and the projects should have produced various life forms for various planets. They have been also trying various solutions. They wrote the big code, executed it, did not like some function, changed them or added new one, executed again, made more improvements, tried again and again. Of course, soon or later it was behind schedule. Few deadlines have already passed. Then the management began pressing for an immediate release. The programmers were ordered to cut all their idealistic plans for the future and concentrate now on one (Earth) project to meet the pressing deadline. Very likely in a rush, the programmers cut down drastically the big code and delivered basic program intended for Earth. However, at that time they were (perhaps) not quite certain which functions of the big code may be needed later and which not, so they kept them all there. Instead of cleaning the basic program by deleting all the lines of the big code, they converted them into comments, and in the rush they missed few /* symbols in the comments here or there; thus presenting mankind with illogical growth of mass of cells we know as cancer."

Soon or later, we have to come to grips with the unbelievable notion that every life on Earth carries genetic code for his extraterrestrial cousin and that evolution is not what we think it is. This discovery may well shake the very roots of humanity - our beliefs in our concept of God and in our own power over our destiny. With the right paradigm, we may discover one day that all forms of life and the whole Universe is just one huge intellectual exercise in thoughts expressed mathematically, by Design, by Creator

Source.

Could be...
Personally I like the whole alien ancestor theory. But hey, who am I ?

Extraterrestrial Contact: Why might ETs be interested in humanity? Part 1

An old Thread on Junk DNA.
Language found in junk DNA.

An old thread with an alien edge ?
Scientists find Extraterrestrial genes in Human DNA

And another thread.
The secrets of DNA finally unlocked!

There is also work that suggests psychokinesis and other paranormal abilities can be traced back to our junk DNA. I think I've presented a lot of info you can think about for a while, so maybe next time.



I hope you all enjoyed it, and I like to hear what you think and what you can add to the list or correct of course.

So, what's it going to be for you ?

Junk ?
Alien origin ?
Evolutionary edge for adaptation ?



~ Sinter.




[edit on 6/30/2010 by Sinter Klaas]

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


A really well thought out thread Mr. Klaas! I wonder about how such molecules assemble merely by chance from basically inert ingredients... seems implausible from my understanding of it which I admit is limited. If it is indeed a method of communication of some sort I would love to learn this ancient language!

Could the "junk" DNA also be some remnants from maybe other places in the universe if it arrived via panspermia? Or could life have evolved during time periods on this planet when current life form could not exist and evolved into what we are now? One thing that is almost certain in biology is that nature does not like to waste AT ALL!

[edit on 1-7-2010 by IamBoon]

reply to post by IamBoon


Hi

I think it is a very plausible ingredient.

There are a number of related theories that could be better explained when DNA indeed includes a language.

Then there is something mathematical that also can be seen as if it has a design label attached to them.

Like:
The Fibonacci sequence. ( Fractals )

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ec99dd175a49.jpg[/atsimg]
Image from Strangeland

reply to post by IamBoon

Could the "junk" DNA also be some remnants from maybe other places in the universe if it arrived via panspermia? Or could life have evolved during time periods on this planet when current life form could not exist and evolved into what we are now? One thing that is almost certain in biology is that nature does not like to waste AT ALL!

That's for sure.

I think the best explanation given is in the video about junk DNA in the OP.
I honestly can tell if it is correct.

My personal idea is that our DNA is in fact a language. Have you ever heard of the 100 monkey theory ?
Read this thread: The 100 monkey phenomena

And, it seems that on a quantum level individual particles communicate with others on the other side of the galaxy instantly. So...

That makes it even more plausible.

there can be little doubt that the mind-body link is mediated by the DNA molecule.

one possibility is that the nitgogenous bases may be functional as a quantum computer. i have posted an abstract of some current research below. i was unable to locate an online copy.

Title:
Triplet–singlet spin communication between DNA nucleotides serves the basis for quantum computing.

Source:
Chemical Physics Letters; Feb2007, Vol. 436 Issue 1-3, p258-262, 5p

Abstract:
The nature of spin communication between DNA nucleotide pairs is discussed. The results are based on CIU (2×106 configurations, 6-311G∗∗ basis set) quantum chemistry computations at a constant temperature T =310K of complementary nucleotide pairs, guanosine–cytidine (G–C) and adenosine–thymidine (A–T) monophosphates, assembled into DNA fragments of different length. Calculations reveal alternation of low energy triplet–singlet (T–S) potential energy surfaces (PESs), assigned to individual nucleotides. In a narrow energy interval these PESs approach, showing repulsion and uncommon crossings. Complementary nucleotide pairing, a result of Watson–Crick hydrogen bonding, produces a global minimum in total energy, coming from the unique crossing between two singlet by nature PESs strictly around 310K. Interaction between non-complementary nucleotides reveals no minima and points rather to system destabilization. Computations show that regularly organized DNA is a structure of similarly oriented spins along each of its two chains, so that the resultant spin of the whole structure is equal to zero. Disordering in spin structure produces coherent effects, appearing in spin flipping, which serves the basis for constructing DNA-based quantum computing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

also, on the cutting edge of molecular biology is adding a third strand to the double helix, called PNA. if DNA is a language, then with the use of PNA, we will be able to "re-write" the book to our own liking.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/e52df693ab9634c0.jpg[/atsimg]




also of interest is the field of BIO-PHOTONICS, which suggests that DNA may form an EM resonant pathway of biological communication. it is currently believed that proteins organize the control of the organism. but biophotonics suggests that cellular structures are actually exchanging packets of visible light facilitated by DNA.


great job, OP




[edit on 1-7-2010 by tgidkp]

Every time I hear the term "junk DNA" I conjure up a picture of some nucleotide all rusted out and hoisted up on cinder blocks sitting in the middle of a lawn with dead grass, with some thymine chained to the gate, functioning as the equivalent of a DNA rottweiler barking incessantly over the blaring sound of Megadeth coming from the polymer house.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


That is one hell of a visual description you give here.
I like it.

Reply to post by tgidkp


I would very much appreciate it if you could find a link on it.
It is not easy for me to understand.

Anyway...
Thanks.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


My GF studied Human Genetics at Uni, she has talked about 'junk' DNA in the past when they catalogued the human geonome they were expecting to find about 100,000 gen seqs - they ended up only finding 20,000.

What amazes me about DNA is the sheer uber-complicated processes which occur to just keep our DNA intact - there are protiens whoose entire job is to 'look' for errors and then correct mistakes and misprints..suprising to say that she lost me halfway through most of our conversations about it.

Some researchers have found that the majority of junk DNA is actual remnets of viruses. Our DNA structure is upto 9% Virus.

From Disinfo:
This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.

I'm not a religious man, not in the christian sense anyway...but the more I learn, the more I feel as though we were 'designed' or at least upgraded...Ancient Astronaut Theory anyone?








[edit on 1-7-2010 by OptimusPrimate]

its pretty obvious that in the future we will create better humans, different humans to live in planets we coulndt live right now, different life to travel into space

so, we can asks ourselves, maybe some other civilization did this already and made us to live in this planet

who knows

its possible ... the reality is that nobody knows ... DNA is very interesting, thanks for the topic

reply to post by OptimusPrimate


Hi

I've heard about viruses yes. I even made a thread about.

You can read it here if you are interested.
Human and virus share a common ancestor.

I read something about 20.000 paires. I understand that the remaining junk is not identified because they just don't know why or what it does or is.

reply to post by Faiol


Yes. That's the same thing I think.

What else could be the reason to look at the skies. I just hope something big happens in my lifetime.

I believe a portion of this junk DNA is just like a program going through beta phase. It is being tested by the body against various external criteria to make sure it will perform without flaw in the real world.

If you haven't figured it out already, I think Darwin was a joke.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


You may be interested in this link 333connect.com...

It tells you how and why our other 10 strands of dna were disconnected

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


If DNA has a language, I'm wondering if mind and matter are separate entities?

I really enjoyed this thread. Definitely well-thought out and delivered.

I myself believe that alien ancestory had atleast SOMETHING to do with our DNA because it comes together almost too perfectly, and aside from DNA builds, we as a race are over-dominant to our host (earth), and survive and reproduce at a scale much larger than we die or kill.

As far as the debate of whether or not DNA is or is not a language, I'd have to side with you that the debate regarding it "not being a language" was too filled with science words that the average joe will never understand and thus, give no credit towards. On the contrary, the evidence leading towards it "being a language" was dumbed down for us.

Perhaps the extra coding or "Junk DNA" was intentionally left in for our own future use.

Our "seeders", knowing that with the basic active DNA that they provided, assumed that humans would eventually evolve enough to discover their Junk DNA and pick up where they left off. Altering and improving the code that they didn't have time for.

Just a thought.

When I'm working on an ad, sometimes I have to scurry to get it out the door to meet a deadline. A lot of the time I don't get to "finish" it. It seems there is always things I wanted to do. And a lot of them I start, but due to client changes I don't always have the time to finish. I never delete them. I usually leave them on the paste board, knowing that the ad is going to go to the newspaper or magazine and their graphic designer is going to pick the ad back up and finish it out. Sometimes the ad appears exactly as I left it. Rarely does it appear as I had intended, but many times the components I left on the pasteboard are picked up and used in the ad in one fashion or another.

I have no problem with natural evolution, whether we came from primates or not, but if there was an Alien interference with our DNA, and they did, in fact, splice our genes with primate and extraterrestrial strands, then I would be extremely furious if I found this out.

Think about it,
If the Universe was designed by the spiral, then shouldn't the spiral be the only one responsible for creating new life? If a higher intelligence did interfere with Mother Nature, then maybe that explains why the Human race as a whole is so messed up in the head. Maybe that is why we are so quick to kill the Earth by uplifting The Man's material world, because something is off with our DNA. We cannot respect nature, because we were not made naturally, our births have not been willed by the stars.

Maybe we are suppose to have a triple helix, but our chance was taken away from us, by the 'benevolent' aliens. Perhaps more of us would have these supernatural powers if our genetic makeup had not been tampered with, and our evolution allowed to happen on the spiral's time, and not by the hands of imperfection.

A lot to think about.

Good thread.

The first part of this video might interest you. Dr Bill Deagle explaining the so called "junk DNA"



Incase the video does not work here is the link: Junk DNA explained





[edit on 1-7-2010 by Namaste1001]

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Very Nice! I study physics, not biochemistry, but I think was very well written and did an excellent job of educating those of us with little knowledge of DNA.