“The humped bladderwort plant (shown here in a scanning electron micrograph) is a
voracious carnivore, with its tiny bladders leveraging vacuum pressure to suck in bitty prey at great speed.”
Photo credit: Enrique Ibarra-Laclette, Claudia Anahí Pérez-Torres and Paulina Lozano-Sotomayor

– “‘Junk’ DNA mystery solved: It’s not needed”
“One person’s trash may be another person’s treasure, but sometimes, trash is just trash.

So-called junk DNA, the vast majority of the genome that doesn’t code for proteins, really isn’t needed for a healthy organism, according to new research.

‘At least for a plant, junk DNA really is just junk — it’s not required,’ said study co-author Victor Albert, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Buffalo in New York.

While the findings, published Sunday [May 12, 2013] in the journal Nature, concern a carnivorous plant, they could have implications for the human genome as well. Genes make up only 2 percent of the human genome, and researchers have argued in recent years that the remaining 98 percent may play some hidden, useful role.”

“‘Nobody’s really known what junk DNA does or doesn’t do,’ Albert told LiveScience.

But in recent years, researchers have debated whether “junk” might be a misnomer and if this mysterious DNA might play some role. A massive project called ENCODE, which aimed to uncover the role of the 3.3 billion base pairs, or letters of DNA, in the human genome that don’t code for proteins, found that in test tubes, about 80 percent of the genome seemed to have some biological activity, such as affecting whether genes turn on. Whether that translated to any useful or necessary function for humans, however, wasn’t resolved,” quoting Tia Ghose, LiveScience.
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– UPDATE: November 4, 2014
“Scientists reverse ageing process in mice; early human trials showing ‘promising results'”
“Scientists from Harvard and the University of New South Wales say they have discovered how to reverse the ageing process,” quoting Sue Lannin, The World Today.
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– UPDATE: November 11, 2014
“Controlling genes with your thoughts”
“Researchers have constructed the first gene network that can be controlled by our thoughts. Scientists have developed a novel gene regulation method that enables thought-specific brainwaves to control the conversion of genes into proteins (gene expression). The inspiration was a game that picks up brainwaves in order to guide a ball through an obstacle course,” quoting ETH Zurich, Science Daily.
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– – Ramtha on the role of “junk DNA”, this from 2001
“Every cell biologist knows that the cell is immortal and that the DNA has an immortal gene in it. A whole group of DNA called junk DNA has never been used by the cell. What do you suppose is in junk DNA? All that we have never been. Our DNA has room for us to mentally change. The DNA in every cell in our body has room for us to dream and to manifest a goal as privileged, as idealistic, as noble as those moments we have garnered in our life.

Our DNA has made room for the possibility of an unlimited mind and all we have to do is to turn that mind on and that DNA will turn on, because without the free will of a state of consciousness that DNA will always be called junk DNA. That will always be latent and you will always be asking the question, ‘If I have immortality in every cell of my body, why did it not turn on?'”

– Ramtha
January 21, 2001
Yelm, WA.
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