Ever since the Enlightenment, the true forms of existence have been slowing coming out of the fog of unknowing and from behind the previous explanations born of active imaginations and little else. And, at any moment as science unfolds the picture for us, we are seduced into thinking that we have it all or that we almost have it all. But, just wait ten or fifeteen years and look again. This story’s a great example. When I was in college in the 70’s studying Microbiology, the DNA world was our gospel and RNA was just a left over artifact. Then a few years ago, an entire system based on RNA became visible beside and beneath the previously known DNA world. And now, here, we have yet another form emerging from the fog. I do not agree in the least with the Intelligent Design folks but I do think that the complexity that four billion years of trial and error can yeild is wonderous.
By Nicholas Wade – NY Times
Researchers believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code.
The genetic code specifies all the proteins that a cell makes. The second code, superimposed on the first, sets the placement of the nucleosomes, miniature protein spools around which the DNA is looped. The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.
The discovery, if confirmed, could open new insights into the higher order control of the genes, like the critical but still mysterious process by which each type of human cell is allowed to activate the genes it needs but cannot access the genes used by other types of cell.
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