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Author Topic:   Is Human DNA as good as it gets?
NosyNed
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Posts: 9003
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 3 of 25 (279959)
01-19-2006 12:13 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Mespo
01-18-2006 4:35 PM


1. If humans are at the top of the food chain, is our DNA as complicated as it gets? Are there any plants or animals with more complicated DNA?
We are not at the top of the food chain; insects and bacteria are. They eat us.
I am pretty sure (but don't know) that by some measures of complexity (number of genes, chromosomes, base pairs) we are not the most complex. It may well be that by other measure we are but I don't think that is known yet.
2. Does human DNA contain the sum total of all the DNA that has gone before us. In other words, can human DNA be "read" as the greatest Natural Biology history text of Earthly fauna there is?
Yes and no. The totality of the gene pool of all organisms is a record of all that has gone before and the enviroments they adapted to. However, the record has been written over and written over again and as you go back it is more jumbled like a palpimset (sp?) that has been used more than once.

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NosyNed
Member
Posts: 9003
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 15 of 25 (285371)
02-09-2006 11:19 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Fabric
02-09-2006 9:47 PM


Recent Human Evolution
i read the other day that our human dna has'nt changed in the last 10,000 years of recorded history, do you peeps think there will be a big sudden change or very small changes over long periods of time....
You'd have to supply the source for that statment. There seem to be a lot of cases where it has changed.
There is reason to think that the black death supplied enough selective pressure that europeans (and other subject to it) carry some mutations that others don't.
That is the kind of evolution that we would expect to see over the 10,000 year time frame. This sort of thing will, of course, be reduced by a much larger, interacting population.

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