What Makes Us Human? The Answer May Be Found in Overlooked “Junk” DNA

Yet another blow to a natural interpretation of evolution.

Our DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee, which in evolutionary terms is our closest living relative. Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now found a previously overlooked part of our DNA, so-called non-coded DNA, that appears to contribute to a difference which, despite all our similarities, may explain why our brains work differently. The study is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

Using the stem cells, the researchers specifically grew brain cells from humans and chimpanzees and compared the two cell types. The researchers then found that humans and chimpanzees use a part of their DNA in different ways, which appears to play a considerable role in the development of our brains.

“The part of our DNA identified as different was unexpected. It was a so-called structural variant of DNA that were previously called “junk DNA,” a long repetitive DNA string which has long been deemed to have no function. Previously, researchers have looked for answers in the part of the DNA where the protein-producing genes are – which only makes up about two percent of our entire DNA – and examined the proteins themselves to find examples of differences.”

The new findings thus indicate that the differences appear to lie outside the protein-coding genes in what has been labeled as “junk DNA,” which was thought to have no function and which constitutes the majority of our DNA.

“This suggests that the basis for the human brain’s evolution are genetic mechanisms that are probably a lot more complex than previously thought, as it was supposed that the answer was in those two percent of the genetic DNA. Our results indicate that what has been significant for the brain’s development is instead perhaps hidden in the overlooked 98 percent, which appears to be important. This is a surprising finding.”

scitechdaily.com...

A natural interpretation of evolution is a fantasy. An intelligent design interpretation of evolution is the only thing that makes sense.

HOW CAN SOMETHING EVOLVE NATURALLY TO REGULATE THE EXPRESSION OF INFORMATION ENCODED IN THE SEQUENCE OF CODING REGIONS OF DNA?

It makes no sense.

How can the correlation of information occur naturally and randomly?

Paper: “Irreducible Organization” of DNA Necessary for Genetic Regulation

How did these various independent levels of information become “coordinated”? Brilliance seems the best explanation for something brilliant.

evolutionnews.org...

Here's more:

Integration of syntactic and semantic properties of the DNA code reveals chromosomes as thermodynamic machines converting energy into information

Abstract

Understanding genetic regulation is a problem of fundamental importance. Recent studies have made it increasingly evident that, whereas the cellular genetic regulation system embodies multiple disparate elements engaged in numerous interactions, the central issue is the genuine function of the DNA molecule as information carrier. Compelling evidence suggests that the DNA, in addition to the digital information of the linear genetic code (the semantics), encodes equally important continuous, or analog, information that specifies the structural dynamics and configuration (the syntax) of the polymer. These two DNA information types are intrinsically coupled in the primary sequence organisation, and this coupling is directly relevant to regulation of the genetic function. In this review, we emphasise the critical need of holistic integration of the DNA information as a prerequisite for understanding the organisational complexity of the genetic regulation system.

link.springer.com...

Again, a natural interpretation of evolution is a fantasy. You're looking at a system that's highly organized through the correlation of information. The paper calls it ORGANISATIONAL COMPLEXITY OF GENETIC REGULATION! How does the regulation of information evolve naturally?

Here's more:

Study highlights the critical role of junk DNA in mammalian development

Nearly half of our DNA has been written off as junk, the discards of evolution: sidelined or broken genes, viruses that got stuck in our genome and were dismembered or silenced, none of it relevant to the human organism or human evolution.

But research over the last decade has shown that some of this genetic "dark matter" does have a function, primarily in regulating the expression of host genes -; a mere 2% of our total genome -; that code for proteins. Biologists continue to debate, however, whether these regulatory sequences of DNA play essential or detrimental roles in the body or are merely incidental, an accident that the organism can live without.

A new study led by researchers at University of California, Berkeley, and Washington University explored the function of one component of this junk DNA, transposons, which are selfish DNA sequences able to invade their host genome. The study shows that at least one family of transposons -; ancient viruses that have invaded our genome by the millions -; plays a critical role in viability in the mouse, and perhaps in all mammals. When the researchers knocked out a specific transposon in mice, half their mouse pups died before birth.

This is the first example of a piece of "junk DNA" being critical to survival in mammals.

The mouse and humans share 99% of their protein coding genes in their genomes -; we are very similar with each other. So, what constitutes the differences between mice and humans? One of the major differences is gene regulation -; mice and humans have the same genes, but they can be regulated differently. Transposons have the capacity to generate a lot of gene regulatory diversity and could help us to understand species-specific differences in the world."

Lin He, Study Senior Author and Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California - Berkeley

Here's a video on transposons. Look at the precision. It's like something you will see in any factory created by intelligence.



What this shows is humans and mice share the same code but this code is regulated differently BY DESIGN! It's like if you take 1,000 websites coded by Python and HTML, you will find similar code in all of the websites and some of them will share more sequences than others. So you can say websites a, b and t are closely related based on the code. But these websites will look different from each other even though they share the same code. This is because an intelligent mind determined how the code was expressed.

Again, how did the regulation of information that's encoded on the sequence of coding regions of DNA evolve naturally? How did this correlation of information occur through a natural interpretation of evolution? Why is it so accurate when it occurs? If the organization of information occurs naturally and randomly why does it get it right every time and the right insertions to make hominids or the right insertions to make the genus canis or any other organism occur when it's needed? Where's the evidence of evolution trying to get it right blindly and naturally?

a reply to: neoholographic

***Spoiler Alert***

Mankind as we know it isn't from here.

We try to keep telling y'all, nobody listens....

~signed, the Hopi~

The scientists investigating anything medical made discoveries in the past and thought they have figured everything out...they did not spend much time researching what the experts deemed as junk DNA and anything that did not code for proteins was just ignored....they were wrong beyond anyone's imagination.

They have now looked at the effect of much of the junk DNA as to regulation of hormones and enzymes and in it's ability to regulate these functions over the last say fifteen years and removed a lot of the Junk DNA to a new classification in epigenetics regulation which works with how it interacts with diet and environmental things. But some of it is still classified as Junk but it is not really junk, it all has a purpose for something. I remember when they would say an enzyme only controlled one thing in the body, they quit looking after they found one thing the enzyme interacted with...what fools to believe that more than one metabolic process could interact with one enzyme. We know very little of what can be known about how our bodies work.

Now, this article does not say anything about mouse DNA so I guess it does not apply to me.

In a few hundred years maybe if people open their minds up when doing research and look at the whole picture, we will have a good chance of being able to fix things by altering environmental factors including diet to match the genetic profiles. Nobody is the same, even genetic expression can differ in identical twins making them way different just by the way they eat. Genes do also control how our minds work and certain foods cause people to lose their ability to reason correctly, foods touted as superfoods usually dumb us down or calm us more than help with keeping us from getting sick. It is a campaign from some people studying how to keep society more easily controlled, they have been studying food chemistry for thousands of years and leaders want the pawns to not be able to think correctly or want them obsessed with sex so they leave politics to the government leaders. This is not new, stuff about this was written three thousand years ago on rocks and scrolls. People study how to control the behavior of people to keep society compliant. Now they just feed us crap and then give us meds for everything to keep us controlled. I really would like to know exactly who controls this kind of program here in the country, I read research about it quite often and observe how they twist the research to show what they want it to show...which has been going on for a long time.

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: neoholographic

***Spoiler Alert***

Mankind as we know it isn't from here.

We try to keep telling y'all, nobody listens....

~signed, the Hopi~

Nah, we are from here, we evolved from some sort of biped Raptor dinosaur and we lost our tail. Some of the people are reverting back to Rappers and sing like dinosaurs did long ago.

The 7 worlds and we are at the end of the 4th one? Hopi were helped? by ancient Ant people in the 3rd world but have been absent in this the 4th iteration? IIRC and the Ancient Anunnaki Aliens

Petroglyphs (rock carvings or pictographs), cave drawings depicting beings with skinny bodies, huge eyes, and bulbous heads, sometimes sprouting antennae, can be found throughout the southwest United States. These enigmatic individuals are typically depicted in a prayer posture, with their elbows and knees at right angles, similar to the ant’s bent legs. Many people believe that the ant figures represented are extraterrestrial beings, and some even believe that the Hopi tribe has seen and interacted with them

One of the most fascinating Hopi legends concerns the ant people, who were important to the Hopi’s survival twice.

montanapioneer.com...

A Lakota legend speaks of seven maidens being chased by a bear. On their knees, they prayed for divine intervention, the result being that the ground beneath them erupted, high into the air, lifting them out of harm’s way, as the bear clawed at the risen ground. The result was Devil’s Tower (Wyoming), the bear’s claws having carved vertical geological features into the rock, and the seven maidens having been installed above as the Pleiades.

The Hopi believe their ancestors came from the Pleiades, the place, or people they call Chuhukon, or, those who cling together, a reference it seems to that tightly grouped starry cluster, as it appears to the naked eye. Likewise, early Dakota legends speak of the Pleiades, or Tiyami, as the abode of the ancestors.

Other native oral histories, or legends, speak of an origin, if not in the Pleiades, then in the stars generally, or other constellations. The Cree, for example, arrived on earth from the stars, as spirits, and then became human beings.

Other native legends, including those of the Lakota, about which we were recently informed by a prominent Montana-based tribal member, speak not necessarily of Star People, but of mysterious beings coming from above, we were told, as spheres of light, that in turn abduct children, a reference to which we will return, and that corresponds eerily to popular “folklore” about alien abduction and breeding programs (that are not for the faint hearted).

a reply to: neoholographic

Haven't been on here in a while but just saw your post ind thought you may be interested in this. I have long thought that some of that so called 'junk' dna may be ancestral memory. This blog may be of interest to you.

behavioralsocialsciences.blogspot.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink">ancestry syndrom

Don't know why this doesn't come up as a link.

Interesting conversation.

I read an article, probably 2 years ago ish..

That stated something about our skeletons evovling to show we are growing some sort of spike in our necks due to

what they say has to do with our posture when looking at computers.

Can't find the article right now.

a reply to: crappiekat

www.newsweek.com...

a reply to: Lumenari

I'm not sure to Hopi you're right or Hopi you're wrong.



Cheers

originally posted by: hiddeninsite
a reply to: crappiekat

www.newsweek.com...

Thank you for finding that.

I think we know so much, but know so little.

I am always looking for something on the internet that I can learn from.

I try to be careful of BS and where science is really at.

I probably won't be around in 20 years from now.

That doesn't stop me thinking about how the earth and it's species with progress.

Who knows... My Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great grandchildren may look totally different than me, and

will live differently from me.

What I hope I have done during my time on this Planet we live on now, is to help them to go in the right direction.

To learn. Understand our past, and hopefully teach them the right path to travel to make their lives and others a better

world.

What's truly important is " To choose there fights for the better of their world".

Help one another.

How the heck will we wear hoodies with something sticking out of the back of our heads. lol

a reply to: putnam6

I went to school with a couple of Seminole kids, one of them had a VERY out-of-the-box interpretation for the origin myths across all the tribes -- reincarnation told differently. He was extremely sure of it, believed it very, very strongly and thought that "truth" was lost to time, and ultimately, the Chinese Telephone aspect of using oral history instead of written.


It made enough of an impact on me to stick with me for over 20 years. And is well-worth considering -- he did.

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: neoholographic

***Spoiler Alert***

Mankind as we know it isn't from here.

We try to keep telling y'all, nobody listens....

~signed, the Hopi~

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....?...

Humans have a genome that is 100,000,000 DNA base pairs SMALLER than the chimpanzee. Evolutionary narrative is not compatible with the observable world

Why should we care? Because transhumanism agenda? We are destined to transcend mortal biology like those evil technocrats also plan to do with cutting edge science? Two different methods, same self important waffle.

OP didn't answer the question. What makes us human?

a reply to: Lumenari

Im watching Alien: Covenant right now. Timely movie for a timely thread.

a reply to: neoholographic

From this paper, could you quote the relevant paragraph(s) that specifically refute evolution as we know it, or support intelligent design please? Don't quote the whole paper, just the parts that support your statement "A natural interpretation of evolution is a fantasy." Thank you in advance.



I'll make a prediction; you won't. You won't because you haven't read anything beyond the abstract. I'll save you the trouble, it says nothing that supports anything you've claimed, but your creationist reviewers say it does based on one line - which they then deliberately change and then assume it means something else.

Remind me please, what does the bible say about people who set out to deceive?

originally posted by: M5xaz

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: neoholographic

***Spoiler Alert***

Mankind as we know it isn't from here.

We try to keep telling y'all, nobody listens....

~signed, the Hopi~

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away....?...

There was a race of aliens...capricans. they invented these wonderful machines called Cylons,who it turns out could evolve into caprican looking creatures. they were called humans. Eventually they were exiled to what we now call earth with no technology to escape to trouble the capricans again.
How better to hide the truth than to put it basically into a fiction show?

a reply to: TerraLiga

You said:

From this paper, could you quote the relevant paragraph(s) that specifically refute evolution as we know it, or support intelligent design please? Don't quote the whole paper, just the parts that support your statement "A natural interpretation of evolution is a fantasy." Thank you in advance.

Did you even read my post or are you blindly responding as you usually do?

I listed the revelant part about organizational complexity. That's the term used by the authors of the paper. All I ask is, if you accept the fantasy of a natural interpretation of evolution tell me how this organization of information naturally evolved. Tell me how information in "junk DNA" evolved to regulate the expression of coded regions of DNA. It's a simple question that you avoided answering.

AGAIN, REGULATE THE EXPRESSION!

I regulate the expression of a text when I do this I make the word this in bold because my intelligence can REGULATE THE EXPRESSION.

If you support the asinine fantasy that is a natural interpretation of evolution then you should be able to explain this not obfuscate as you did in your post.

This is done by transposons.

First, the part of the DNA strand that's transposable is identified by a code on each side of the strand. How did this evolve naturally? How did anything natural or random know which parts of the DNA strand is transposable? How did the code that identifies the transposable elements of a DNA strand evolve naturally?

Next, transposase recognizes the code on the transposable elements and cuts the transposable elements from the DNA strand at the right spost identified by the code. How did transposase naturally or randomly evolve to know the sequence of code that identifies the transposable elements?

Rememer, we call it a transposon and the enzyme transposase. Are intelliegence labels these things so it sounds like an intelligent process. For me, an intelligent design interpretation of evolution is the only explanation that can explain what's occurring. If you support a natural interpretation of evolution then the words transposons and transposes are meaningless to evolution. You have to explain how a protein(enzyme) is encoded in the sequence of nucleotides(DNA) evolved naturally and randomly the ability to read coded sequences on the end of transposable elements to know where to cut.



This is a problem of semantics. We name these things in evolution and give it an intelligent meaning. I say because it was designed by intelligence. If you're going to say this occurred naturally then you have to remove human intelligence and explain it without the semantics. So transposons and transposase sounds like they're connected but that's because we name them in a way that makes them sound connected. We impart our own intelligence onto something people say is a random and natural process. So from a natural standpoint, transposons and transposase has nothing to do with each other. There just two separate elements that were encoded separately and just by dumb luck they happen to work together perfectly. When you remove human semantics which gives the process meaning, then it shows how ASININE a n natural interpretation of evolution is.

Also, you didn't answer the questions in the OP.

Again, how did the regulation of information that's encoded on the sequence of coding regions of DNA evolve naturally? How did this correlation of information occur through a natural interpretation of evolution? Why is it so accurate when it occurs? If the organization of information occurs naturally and randomly why does it get it right every time and the right insertions to make hominids or the right insertions to make the genus canis or any other organism occur when it's needed? Where's the evidence of evolution trying to get it right blindly and naturally?

These should be simple questions to answer if you accept the fantasy that is a natural interpretation of evolution. I contend, they're impossible to answer in any natural or random way but it's believed because evolution has been used to support atheism and materialism by it's believers.

a reply to: neoholographic

So, incredulity is your best defence against science? Your very best effort is 'I don't know how this happened so my conclusion is that it didn't'.

The paper mentions 'irreducible organisation', which your creationist website magically conflates to 'irreducible complexity' - two entirely different meanings and outcomes.

Again, where exactly in the paper - a scientific publication that you are quoting and referring to - does it dismiss evolution as we know it and endorse intelligent design. I couldn't find it when I first read it in 2013 and I couldn't find it tonight either. Please show me.

You claimed 'A natural interpretation of evolution is a fantasy.' based on the evidence presented in this paper. Where is that evidence? Please cite it.

originally posted by: cooperton
Humans have a genome that is 100,000,000 DNA base pairs SMALLER than the chimpanzee. Evolutionary narrative is not compatible with the observable world

Wow, I didn't know this. Thanks for the information.