this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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Asklemmy
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95% of our DNA is basically useless gibberish. Since the evolutionary incentive to shorten it is so small in our case, all sorts of processes "hijack" it to propagate themselves without giving anything back.
Recent studies have it at closer to 92% 'junk' DNA, and 8% actively coding.
Also, a lot of non-coding DNA does actually serve other useful functions, it just doesn't actively code.
It could play a role in epigenetics, ie the regulation of what active coding sequences are active and when, it could be telomeres that prevent DNA strands from unravelling at the ends, it could be binding and scaffold sites that assist in the structural stability and integrity of the chromosome.
DNA can be functional, without being active-coding.
Only regions that are both non coding and also totally non functional are truly 'junk', but we keep consistently finding more ways that 'non functional' regions are actually functional.
Just like my codebase.