As a young boy growing up, when I first read about DNA of not just us human beings but all life, I was very impressed with the concepts itself. The way our entire body, nature and personality could be encoded in such a small thing.
I wonder how all this started. Some would say a God created this and it does look like programming because the DNA carries instructions just like how a finished software has in the background instructions. Or all this came by chance and this is just how the universe operates.
Biology is my favorite topic in the field of science and I've started studying a lot into Genetics.
But what I didn’t expect to learn about our DNA is that there happens to be a huge chunk of our genetic material which isn't exactly ours. The scientists call this particular part of the DNA LINE-1.
They said that 20% of our entire genome is made up of this transposable elements and they describe them as "selfish DNA". Don't know who came up with that term though.
Transposons are seen as dangerous and chaotic elements that are also considered an unwanted guest in our DNA. Now the same scientists that agreed on this fact is saying the opposite.
They're saying transposons essential and they help the embryos develop properly into a full human being. So something labeled as destructive is now necessary. It's almost not different from how bacteria which we think cause sickness actually help the body, of course not all bacteria some specific ones.
Dr. Zhang’s team did an experiment to sort of turn off LINE-1 in embryonic cells, the cells literally regressed. Literally, the cells reversed the developmental process. This was a shocking results.
That means the Junk DNA narrative may not be entirely true. This is also a prove of how our main genes has so little a control over our development. The main genes does hold all the instructions that makes is humans and living things but without LINE-1, the whole thing collapses. The thing we look at and see as some sort of genetic parasites is what's really holding us together. The thing I think I need to research more on is how we deal with the issues Junk DNA bring to the body without having to completely isolate it or turn it off.
