Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Dark DNA may reveal new lifeforms

#1
Magical Realist Offline
http://whatisgenetic.com/2013/07/18/dark...lifeforms/

"Dark DNA is the genetic code in the human genome that currently has no known original source.

We have traced 8% of the human genome to viruses. 1-2% of our genome comes from other animals. Believe it or not you share 55% of your genetic code with a banana – and that’s not just men.

However, 20% of our genome is completely unaccounted for. We have no idea where it came from.

Wolfe said, “As we started to look at this information, we would see that about 20 percent of the genetic information in your nose doesn’t match anything that we’ve ever seen before — no plant, animal, fungus, virus or bacteria. Basically we have no clue what this is.”

“If you think 20 percent of genetic information in your nose is a lot of biological dark matter, if we looked at your gut, up to 40 or 50 percent of that information is biological dark matter. And even in the relatively sterile blood, around one to two percent of this information is dark matter — can’t be classified, can’t be typed or matched with anything we’ve seen before.”

“At first we thought that perhaps this was artifact. These deep sequencing tools are relatively new. But as they become more and more accurate, we’ve determined that this information is a form of life, or at least some of it is a form of life. And while the hypotheses for explaining the existence of biological dark matter are really only in their infancy, there’s a very, very exciting possibility that exists: that buried in this life, in this genetic information, are signatures of as of yet unidentified life.”

Some scientists have begun looking for patterns and structures in this “dark DNA” and have already made surprising discoveries, including sequencing unknown mircrobes that produce protein in new ways.

But will the BIG discovery happen? Will this dark DNA hold the secret to a form of life that we have never known before?"
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)