[extropy-chat] Fwd: CNN features amazing user with autism

[BillK]

On 2/25/07, Robert Bradbury wrote:
<snip>
> This isn't the junk DNA -- this is the actual hardware that goes to make up
> your computer's instruction set.  So given 10+ genes involved in these
> conditions we are talking about 40+ variations (which could be present in a
> wide range of combinations) in this set of genes which seems to involve
> fundamental differences in neuronal architecture and functioning.
>
> So even though the people across the diner table from you, sitting next to
> you in the car, walking all around the airport may look like you, walk like
> you and if you are lucky talk like you, they are only "like" you in the
> sense that the are more like you than they are like Sandi [2].
>


Yes. I've been thinking since last year that people are a lot more
different than previously suspected. Mainly because our analytical
tools have not been good enough to notice the differences. But that is
gradually improving.

November 23, 2006
Genetic Variation: We're More Different Than We Thought [1]
<http://www.hhmi.org/news/scherer20061123.html>

and

February 15, 2007
Alternative Ways of Reading DNA Have Spurred Evolution [2]
<http://www.hhmi.org/news/green20070215.html>

Quote:
 Humans are substantially more complex than the tiny worm
Caenorhabditis elegans, yet both organisms have about the same number
of genes. Why is human DNA so much more versatile?

One reason is that many mammalian genes come in more than one form.
Now research by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Philip
Green and his colleagues at the University of Washington has revealed
key characteristics of a genetic tool, known as an alternative
promoter, that can produce protein variants and thereby increase
genetic diversity.


BillK


[1]
<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7118/full/nature05329.html>
Global variation in copy number in the human genome

[2]
<http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/2/145?ijkey=8918dd73018e62608ee882dfced1b7ed0b611230&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha>
Characterization and predictive discovery of evolutionarily conserved
mammalian alternative promoters