Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA

NY Times ^ | July 25, 2006 | NICHOLAS WADE

[Pharmboy]

Loren Williams/Chemistry and Biochemistry,
Georgia Institute of Technology
In a living cell, the DNA double helix
wraps around a nucleosome, above
center, and binds to some of its
proteins, known as histones.

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.

The new code is described in the current issue of Nature by Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute in Israel and Jonathan Widom of Northwestern University in Illinois and their colleagues.

There are about 30 million nucleosomes in each human cell. So many are needed because the DNA strand wraps around each one only 1.65 times, in a twist containing 147 of its units, and the DNA molecule in a single chromosome can be up to 225 million units in length.

Biologists have suspected for years that some positions on the DNA, notably those where it bends most easily, might be more favorable for nucleosomes than others, but no overall pattern was apparent. Drs. Segal and Widom analyzed the sequence at some 200 sites in the yeast genome where nucleosomes are known to bind, and discovered that there is indeed a hidden pattern.

[Pharmboy]

Makes sense...this had to be coded for somewhere.

[Syberyenta]

Yes, Isn't Chance wonderful /sarc

[Pharmboy]

Secrets-of-Life ping...

[Pharmboy]

HA! Love yer name...

[oh8eleven]

The spools both protect and control access to the DNA itself.
Just doing the protecting and access control that Americans won't do.

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 380 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[Reform4Bush]

DNA is a a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

[PBRSTREETGANG]

The Da Vinci Code?

[JOHN ADAMS]

Note the first author is at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, about 15 miles outside of Tel Aviv. This is what Israelis spend their time on when they're not doing the world's dirty work by eliminating fascist lunatics. (Until the Israelis began their brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there were exactly zero universities there. Now there are six.)

[Screaming_Gerbil]

I guess that's why it's called Faith.

If you believe, you can clearly see the Creator's handiwork evident in all of science, from the vast size of the universe, huge galaxies with billions of stars, etc. to the smallest molecular level details of life.

If someone is an unbeliever, well then chance simply had an infinite amount of time to get it right (I guess that's the anti-Creator argument)...

[DannyTN]

2nd Layer of the Lord's Programming Discovered Ping.

[Aquinasfan]

Code? Aren't codes usually written by intelligent beings? Hmmm...

[samtheman]

an infinite amount of time to get it right

It didn't take an infinite amount of time. In fact, it got started fairly quickly.

Within several tens of millions of years after the earth cooled enough to allow the countdown to begin. Geologically it was pretty quick. In human terms (had there been any observers), it would have seemed like nothing was going on forever.

(That's one of the differences between science and non-science. Science isn't limited by how things seem.)

[Highest Authority]

All this and there's still no way to give DemonRats brains!!!

[No Longer Free State]

Love it. Mind if I quote you?

[BigCinBigD]

Behold. The fingerprints of God.

[showme_the_Glory]

DNA, notably those where it bends most easily,.......
Gays were right all along. Being bent was meant to be. /sarc

[far sider]

Praise Evolution from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Evolution all creatures here below.

Evolution is so cool. It can do anything.

Praise you, Evolution.

[Gritty]

Isn't it miraculous how this all evolved out of some warm ocean water, floating dead things and some random electricity (oh,... and billions and billions of years)?

[ReignOfError]

Researchers believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code.

Amazingly, the code revealed the location of Mary Magdalene's remains and apparently predicted the rise of Adolf Hitler and the death of Princess Diana.