Junk DNA Quotes

“It also showed that the only real block to bi-maternal reproduction is the DNA methylation pattern at key genes. It disproved a previous hypothesis that sperm were required because the sperm themselves carried certain necessary accessory factors such as particular proteins or RNA molecules required to kick-start development properly.16”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“More long non-coding RNAs are expressed in the brain than any other tissue (with the possible exception of the testes).26 Some have been conserved from birds to humans, with expression patterns that occur in the same regions and at the same developmental stages. These”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“In 2002 scientists demonstrated beautifully just how random the process of X inactivation really is, by cloning a calico cat. They took cells from an adult female cat, and carried out the standard (but still fiendishly tricky) process of cloning. To do this, they removed the nucleus from the adult cat cell and put it into a cat egg whose own chromosomes they’d removed. This egg was implanted into a surrogate cat mother, and a lively and beautiful female kitten was born. And she didn’t look anything like the genetically identical cat of which she was a clone.18”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“Imagine Spider-Man is standing in a set position and needs to get something. He throws a web at the thing he wants, and then drags it to him. Now imagine that a very tiny Spider-Man is standing at one end of a cell. He throws a web at the chromosome he wants, the web attaches, and he pulls the chromosome to his end of the cell. A tiny Spider-Man clone does the same thing at the opposite end of the cell for the other chromosome in the matching pair.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“Incredibly, the human body produces about 2 million red blood cells every second.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“The angriest critique of ENCODE included the expressions ‘logical fallacy’, ‘absurd conclusion’, ‘playing fast and loose’ and ‘used the wrong definition wrongly’.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“sometimes the most extraordinary biology lies hidden in the most apparently mundane of assumptions.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“If DNA is black-to-white with perhaps a few shades of grey depending on the level of methylation, histone modifications are glorious technicolour.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“Developmental processes become much easier to visualise if we think of them as never-ending circles rather than in straight lines.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“Cancer can in some ways be thought of as the flip side of development.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome

“The more sophisticated an organism, the higher the percentage of junk DNA it contains.”
― Nessa Carey, Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the Genome