[HN Gopher] Human gene linked to bigger brains was born from see...
___________________________________________________________________
Human gene linked to bigger brains was born from seemingly useless
DNA
Author : rolph
Score : 150 points
Date : 2023-01-06 14:51 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| acqbu wrote:
| seemingly - is the key word here
|
| is this research done by the same people that expect us to
| believe that the universe simply exploded into existence?
| clint wrote:
| What an amazingly stupid post lol
| xyzelement wrote:
| [flagged]
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Human gene linked to bigger brains was born from seemingly
| useless DNA"
|
| Considering how we've managed to use those bigger brains, that
| DNA still seems useless.
|
| It would be interesting to use seemingly unused DNA to express
| genes. But I also wonder if these truly lack a function, or if we
| just don't know the function.
| xeromal wrote:
| This brings up a question for me. Does brain size always
| correlate to intelligence? I see a dolphin brain that looks very
| human and I think that it does, but then I see how smart crows
| are and I'd honestly say that they're smarter than my dog in most
| ways.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| One analogy is computers: bigger is not more powerful,
| structure matters more.
| Breadmaker wrote:
| http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/3.3.htm some correlation atleast.
| buywarbonds wrote:
| No. A tiger is not 10x smarter than a house cat.
| feet wrote:
| That assumes the correlation would be linear
| joe__f wrote:
| Don't you want to look for something like brain/body mass ratio
| and see how that correlates with intelligence?
| coyotespike wrote:
| Yes to a first approximation this is a good heuristic!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93body_mass_ratio
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient
| sieste wrote:
| Not exactly an answer to your question, but a few studies
| report a weak positive correlation (around .3) between head
| size and IQ in humans.
|
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=corr...
| svnt wrote:
| But several in your search, including the twin study, report
| no correlation, and others report correlation only within
| race and sex groups.
| clnq wrote:
| If there's a weak correlation in a population, finding no
| correlation in some subpopulations and a stronger
| correlation in others is expected.
|
| For example, a very weak correlation between GPA and job
| performance exists. In some disciplines, like law, the
| correlation is strong. In other fields, like extreme
| medicine, there is no correlation.
| astrange wrote:
| Are there studies on GPAs of extreme medics? ...Why?
|
| (And how much education did they have? The field includes
| people who have and haven't gone to medical school, I
| assume.)
| clnq wrote:
| No, this was meant to be an intuitive example of weak
| correlation. It could have been about a correlation
| between the redness of a fruit and its sweetness. For the
| entire population of fruit, it is weakly correlated. For
| some apples, it is strongly correlated. And for tomatoes,
| there is no correlation.
|
| Extreme medicine, which includes field, mountain, and
| battlefield medicine, is a specialization of general
| medicine. You can study it as a part of various programs.
| I studied it as a specialization in a general
| practitioner's MSc program in Central Europe. Depending
| on the region, it is probably possible to specialize in
| extreme medicine as a nurse or an EMT.
|
| There was a wide range of GPAs in that program because
| success was measured by a narrow range of criteria that
| did not include things usually considered "academic
| aptitude" - mainly the ability to follow resuscitation
| algorithms in simulations precisely. Some of the things
| we were scored by automatically were time to ECG, time to
| defibrillation, correct callouts to the team, intubation
| depth and time, and chest compression depth and rate. And
| failing to execute a particular algorithm meant immediate
| failure. Every other imperfection immediately meant a
| reduced score, and scoring was entirely metric-based in
| simulators, not open to human interpretation.
|
| Scoring just 45% of the possible grade on tests was
| considered excellent. You had to demonstrate very high
| competency to pass. Mediocre knowledge of algorithms or
| skills in resuscitation was unacceptable because that
| would severely worsen the outcomes of actual patients.
|
| If you either cared about your GPA or were primarily
| motivated by your GPA at school or university, it was
| clear that this would be a very difficult specialization
| for you. It was more for people who excelled in algorithm
| following, composure under stress, and perseverance; and
| those who wanted a high skill ceiling.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Within generally similar animals, brain size is correlated with
| intelligence. Across different branches of the tree, it's
| harder to compare.
|
| Bigger bird brains ~= smarter birds. Bigger dog brains ~=
| smarter dogs. But you can't directly compare dogs and birds in
| that way.
| kanzure wrote:
| It's the absolute number of cortical neurons, not the size of
| the brain.
|
| "Brains matter, bodies maybe not: the case for examining
| neuron numbers irrespective of body size" https://nyaspubs.on
| linelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-...
|
| "No relative expansion of the number of prefrontal neurons in
| primate and human evolution"
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1610178113
|
| "The human brain in numbers: A linearly scaled-up primate
| brain" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/
|
| "The elephant brain in numbers" https://www.frontiersin.org/a
| rticles/10.3389/fnana.2014.0004...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think that's in contrast to what I said.
|
| Neural architectures are very similar between closely
| related species, and differ wildly between birds and
| whales.
| fossuser wrote:
| It's an interesting question and the answer is also pretty
| interesting:
| https://obscuredinosaurfacts.com/post/2022/11/30/bird-brains...
|
| There are a few factors and that post gives a nice overview.
| kick_in_the_dor wrote:
| I haven't yet read the main article at that link, but its
| opening links to another long blogpost on whatbuywhy.com
| about the human brain and it's fascinating! Highly
| recommended: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
| xeromal wrote:
| Thanks! I've always been curious. Just opened this up.
| polski-g wrote:
| Within a species, yes. There is a 0.41 correlation between
| brain size and intelligence in humans, for example.
| bmitc wrote:
| Dolphins and orcas specifically actually have higher density of
| folds in their brains than human brains in addition to being
| big.
|
| The book _Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins,
| and Porpoises_ is quite good.
| astrange wrote:
| Plus, they have water cooling.
| svnt wrote:
| No because the structure and function of the organ is at least
| as important as the size. Size (or rather some bound of
| neuron/glial count + complexity) is more in the necessary-but-
| not-sufficient category.
|
| Secondly the question is not well-posed enough to answer
| accurately. What is intelligence, in this case?
|
| The cytoarchitecture of brain parcels/regions varies
| significantly. If you have a giant cerebellum you are not going
| to seem very smart to us, but you may have a very large brain.
| At the other end, people have lived normal (if perhaps
| internally simpler) lives with tiny fractions of a typical
| neocortex. [0]
|
| 0 : https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-
| without-90-of-h...
| f6v wrote:
| I'd rather ask about body/brain ratio and % energy consumed by
| a brain.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Does brain size always correlate to intelligence?"
|
| Not really, otherwise whales and elephants would be way
| smarter, than us.
|
| Well, some people say, they are, but it does not show in our
| intelligence tests.
|
| And birds brains evolved differently than those of mammals, so
| maybe they are more efficient with their relative small brain?
| Because yeah, they are definitely smarter than dogs, who have a
| bigger brain.
| prox wrote:
| "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
| that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
| achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on--whilst
| all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water
| having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always
| believed that they were far more intelligent than man--for
| precisely the same reasons." - Douglas Adams
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| This quote is always in the back of my head anytime brain
| size or intelligence is discussed, and is especially when
| dolphins are mentioned. And, he has a point.
| prox wrote:
| As I reflect on the quote more and more, I believe the
| dolphins have the right idea.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| But apparently the dolphins in hitchhikers guide to the
| galaxy did a bit more, than just having a good time in the
| water - because unlike the humans, they managed to find a
| way to leave the earth, when it was destroyed. (Book 4)
|
| And this is not further explained in the book, but it
| likely sounds like technology. And when you want to have
| and use technology, you have to do more than just splashing
| around..
| prox wrote:
| Since dolphins evolved a couple of times, they might had
| that tech lying around just in case. The point stands,
| dolphins use their tech so they can muck about in the
| water. Humans to compete in a rat race and for survival
| in its essence. Which come to think of it, is absolutely
| absurd if for any intelligent species. So we aren't that
| smart.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "So we aren't that smart."
|
| Well, when you consider that we react to global crisis
| like a pandemic with more confrontation, than cooperation
| (there was no real exchange of technology between west
| and east and patents and licencing were still more
| important, than producing enough vaccines) and to the
| climate crisis rather with more wars over whats left of
| the ressources, than to unite and solve the problems -
| no, we are not.
|
| We are smart enough to see, what could be possible, but
| unable to overcome primitive power struggles.
| vlunkr wrote:
| That's some pretty serious cherry picking
| bmitc wrote:
| > Not really, otherwise whales and elephants would be way
| smarter, than us.
|
| How do you know that? I mentioned this in another comment,
| but dolphins and orcas have more folds in their brain than we
| do, and folding is associated with greater processing power
| and higher function. Additionally, the areas of their and
| whales' brains associated with emotional intelligence are
| much larger relative to the rest of their brain than the same
| areas in our brain are. Their brains are very, very
| interesting. For example, they keep one brain hemisphere
| active during sleep since they are conscious breathers, and
| they actually alternate which hemisphere is kept awake.
|
| Whales, dolphins, and orcas are damn smart, and I think
| there's evidence enough that we cannot conclude that they
| aren't more intelligent than us. Although they lack
| technological development, this is due to their living
| environment and physiobiology and not due to their
| intelligence. Orcas in particular have achieved complete
| dominance of their environment, aside from human activity,
| and are geographically widespread with diverse cultures.
| There are many cases where orcas actually use humans as
| tools, even training humans to help them in hunts (and not
| the other way around).
| taneq wrote:
| Sorry to be crass but I'd assume intelligence is somewhat
| correlated with mastery of the physical world (I mean if it
| weren't we wouldn't care about things like AI alignment)
| and while cetaceans are clever mammals they're not very
| good at avoiding being soup. I sympathize with them, but if
| they were "way smarter than us" we would be running and
| hiding instead of debating how nicely we should treat them.
| bmitc wrote:
| I already addressed that though. Operating under the
| hypothetical and assumption that humans could survive in
| the ocean, humans couldn't develop technology and written
| history and knowledge in the ocean without having done so
| on land first, even with our hand dexterity, much less
| with fins.
|
| Humans existed a long time before proper technology
| development, and those humans were just as intelligent as
| modern ones. The ability to create technology is not a
| requirement for higher intelligence.
|
| Even then, orcas do use tools, what they have access to.
| Without technology, humans stand no chance against an
| orca, and that goes for any animal in the ocean, from
| blue whales to great white sharks.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >Humans existed a long time before proper technology
| development, and those humans were just as intelligent as
| modern ones. The ability to create technology is not a
| requirement for higher intelligence.
|
| Is that actually true? In cases of feral or severely
| neglected children who lack any exposure to human
| language, isn't there an impediment that prevents them
| learning more complex language later in life that exceeds
| anything that could be attributed to reduced brain
| development due to nutrition?
|
| World wide hasn't intelligence been increasing, and while
| part of that is due to better nutrition, another part is
| due to better childhood conditions to enable
| intelligence? Exposures to the technology of language,
| written language, and similar at a young age seem to lead
| to an increased capacity for intelligence later in life.
| bmitc wrote:
| Isn't it true? Hominids and Homo sapiens were around
| millions and hundreds of thousands of years,
| respectively, before technology more advanced than basic
| tools showed up. And written history seems even shorter
| than that.
|
| I'm not for sure what feral or neglected children has to
| do with this.
|
| To address your later point, intelligence does not equal
| knowledge. Any increase in intelligence in a person's
| life seems to be intralifetime and doesn't spill over to
| further generations. Increasing intelligence through diet
| and behaviors and such are just mechanisms for exposing
| the underlying intelligence that's already there.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| >To address your later point, intelligence does not equal
| knowledge.
|
| This is just one of the many paths to the fundamental
| question that plagues this sort of topic, what is
| intelligence. Is intelligence the capacity for gaining
| knowledge or having actually gained knowledge? Or maybe
| not directly related to knowledge at all, though the
| previous question was more about the capacity to gain vs
| the gaining than it was about knowledge.
|
| It is known that the capacity a single individual changes
| based on what they were exposed to (feral/neglected
| children being the extreme negative cases, I'm not as
| well read on extreme positive cases). But perhaps we
| aren't talking about an individua's capacity and instead
| we are talking some baseline genetic average capacity for
| a larger group that doesn't take into account
| environmental cases pushing it to either extreme? But in
| such a case have we not defined intelligence so that
| technology's impact is excluded a priori?
| svnt wrote:
| Then we should expect cetaceans to have developed long
| verbal/oral lineages, especially as their medium is much
| better for transmitting sound.
|
| We see dialects, to an extent, in orcas, but we do not
| see the human behaviors we might expect.
|
| The problem, I think, is in the pure consideration of it
| as intelligence. This is a limited view.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| You're implying something is only showing intelligence if
| it shows complexity (long linguistic demonstrations here)
|
| Isn't it more intelligence to convey all the information
| that you need to with the highest efficiency?
|
| We rate a poet who can convey tremendous meaning in few
| lines as superior to someone who is long winded and their
| writing is full of bullshit and tropes conveying nothing
| but using many words.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| that's an assumption that more intelligence means that
| they would have to be motivated by revenge and vengeance
| as opposed to that being a distinctly human flaw
| bmitc wrote:
| This is a good point, and it reminds me of something. I
| do wonder if the ability to be content is a sign of
| higher intelligence. Humans are decidedly discontented,
| and I can't help but be curious about that being a
| possible showcase of our ignorance.
| [deleted]
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "How do you know that? "
|
| I do not know it. I am not an expert and had only limited,
| (but fascinating) contact with them.
|
| But I would assume, if they would be "way smarter", than
| they could and would find ways of communicating with us. As
| far as I know, the research shows that they can
| communcicate towards each other quite well, but not towards
| us beyond very basic things.
|
| But of course that reminds me of an old joke:
|
| A donkey and a dog on a farm are talking to each other in
| the evening and the donkey complains that he has so much
| work to do, but would like to become a writer. The dog
| asks: why don't you tell the farmer? The donkey answers,
| are you crazy? If he finds out, I can read and write, I
| will also have to do his bookkeeping.
|
| Meaning, maybe whales and co. could communicate with us,
| but choose not to. But if this would be the case, their
| reasoning would have to include some very astonishing
| things, as whales are still hunted - which they likely
| could almost completely stop by telling us exactly that.
| 0xBABAD00C wrote:
| > Whales, dolphins, and orcas are damn smart, and I think
| there's evidence enough that we cannot conclude that they
| aren't more intelligent than us.
|
| Where's this evidence? What exactly does "more intelligent"
| mean to you? Do you think a dolphin can learn to play e.g.
| Chess? I doubt you can teach them to play even tic-tac-toe.
| Zamicol wrote:
| Maybe whales are "smarter" than us. How can we empirically
| test whale intelligence? Their technological abilities are
| obviously inferior, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were
| surprisingly intelligent in other ways. I'm trumpet dumb,
| that doesn't mean I'm not "overall smarter" or "niche
| smarter" than some people who play trumpet.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Birds have evolved to have very space efficient neurons, due to
| their weight constraints.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Interestingly, the biggest bird of all, the ostrich, might
| also be the dumbest. Or at least ostriches are in the
| conversation with pigeons and turkeys.
| taneq wrote:
| Birds are smarter per unit of brain matter than mammals and it
| baffles me why more people aren't intrigued by this.
| catskul2 wrote:
| Which people are not intrigued by this?
| terminal_d wrote:
| https://pumpkinperson.com/2019/01/04/what-is-the-correlation...
|
| https://pumpkinperson.com/2019/08/15/increasing-u-s-head-siz...
|
| Last link has a formula to calculate cranial volume.
|
| Animal intelligence is vastly underplayed. Ants seem to be a
| very intelligent creature but they're little more than part of
| nature to us. We're similarly adapted to our environment, and
| those animals are adapted to our patterns and mentation by
| virtue of millennia of close contact / purposeful genetic
| pushes (eg, dogs)
| perth wrote:
| I've read there's decent correlation on a few scientific
| journals on Google scholar. Namely, that while head size
| doesn't guarantee intelligence, if you are predisposed to
| intelligence you can't be as smart as someone else who is
| predisposed to intelligence but has a larger head.
|
| See: the spatial packing problem in human brains
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Birds have a higher neuron density. Each neuron is a mini
| Turing machine running on DNA instructions so they could also
| have better instinctual software.
| dcow wrote:
| Not sure if that analogy holds exactly. Neurons don't
| "compute", they simply emit a signal that depends on how
| "saturated" they currently are, right?
| Choco31415 wrote:
| That simplifies neurons a bit too much. There are a variety
| of neuron types including mirror neurons and pyramid
| neurons. These can feature more or less branching even.
| dcow wrote:
| My point is they operate more like gates. They aren't
| mini Turing machines.
| [deleted]
| Choco31415 wrote:
| You are correct. Neurons are not Turing machines.
| However, they are complex enough that they can be Turing
| machines so it can be fun to call them that.
|
| I didn't expect this topic to be so controversial to be
| honest. I'm not surprised though.
| dcow wrote:
| I fully admit I may be underinformed. I had thought,
| though, that neurons were not sophisticated in the way a
| Turing machine is and much more akin to memristors.
| However, that may be a memristor tinted view of the
| world.
| [deleted]
| rolph wrote:
| neurons have gates, these gates interconnect and form
| logic networks.
|
| these are histeretic, programable, and dynamic.
|
| the neuronal body state, the electro-osmotic environment,
| the past history of state are primary effectors of
| structure,and function resultant in the logic.
| [deleted]
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Feel free to research it. The 'saturated' analogy is overly
| simplistic and elides the incredible complexity of what's
| actually going on.
| dcow wrote:
| But neurons certainly aren't mini Turing machines,
| either? Happy to inform myself more if you can point me
| in the right direction.
| svnt wrote:
| Cells perform a staggering number of parallel
| computations. Neurons are cells, and perform these same
| calculations and more in addition to emitting spikes.
| Spikes, rather than being the major form of computation,
| appear instead to be a means of maintaining
| synchronization.
| dcow wrote:
| I quite honestly did not think of it this way. But it
| makes some sense. I always thought cells perform, for
| lack of a better term, _self-maintenance_ operations
| independently from their macro function (the receiving
| and emitting of spikes, in this case). I did not think of
| the internal operations of a cell being connected to the
| macro function in any sophisticated or meaningful way. I
| would love to inform myself better on this topic since it
| is not by area of expertise, and I have an admittedly
| cursory understanding.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I do think the field of psychopharmacology is probably
| sufficient to give an appreciation of the complexity
| involved at the same time as being useful to the
| practical understanding of how medications (and food)
| change behavior. It's also well studied and there are
| good books. I think Dr Stahl's books are the university
| standard. Like a lot of science though I think much of it
| is 'current best guess'.
|
| For information on the modifying DNA expression in
| neurons that's under epigenetics and not as well studied.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Neurons definitely compute. The dendrites that aggregate
| signals to initiate an action potential are not just simple
| summations but complex arrangements of signal promoters and
| inhibitors. The complexity of a pyramidal neuron is
| equivalent to a 5-8 layer artificial NN.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-computationally-
| complex-i...
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S08966273
| 2...
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| And that result is just from a computer simulation of a
| neuron that focuses on the dendrites and doesn't appear
| to extensively model the nucleus.
|
| "Unfortunately, it's currently impossible for
| neuroscientists to record the full input-output function
| of a real neuron, so there's likely more going on that
| the model of a biological neuron isn't capturing. In
| other words, real neurons might be even more complex."
| dekhn wrote:
| I only downvoted you because "each neuron is a mini Turing
| machine running on DNA instructions" isn't a very helpful
| observation except at the most abstract level.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| In my extensive research of neurons (as an
| independent/citizen scientist) it looks like the closest
| analogy to me. Neuron behavior is not only mediated by DNA
| but neurons can also write changes back into DNA, not to
| mention the nucleus soup that acts a bit like registers. I
| work on small molecule peptide medicine that changes gene
| expression in the neurons and other to glia cells to treat
| medical conditions.
| taneq wrote:
| Do you have any evidence for this? Sounds interesting if
| so.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| The general field is Epigenetics (gene expression based
| on environment), and within that there is research on how
| peptides act as modulators by silencing and un-silencing
| different genes. You can get a list of known bioactive
| peptides by reading it from the DNA or by using mass
| spectrometry (there's a proper name for this but it
| escapes me atm). So putting the two together you can have
| quite a bit of external control over gene expression.
| rolph wrote:
| HPLC [1] or Electrophoresy [2] would be instrumental in
| isolating peptides based on mobility, and molecular mass.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| performance_liquid_chroma...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrophoresis
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I was thinking of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry devices
| used in Protiomics research. It's a bit out of my field
| but I think it's an improvement to HPLC.
| dekhn wrote:
| Probably GC-MS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromat
| ography%E2%80%93mas... Dunno how that would isolate the
| sample, rather than just analyzing it though
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I'm not involved in the process of acquiring the 'omics
| data. I just analyze it and read papers from other people
| analyzing it. I think MALDI-TOF is the gold standard for
| proteomics.
| rolph wrote:
| mass based deflection and deposition.
|
| isolation,and analysis are two different activities, many
| instruments are capable of both modalities, depending on
| technique.
|
| the problem is selecting a procedure that will not induce
| confounding artefacts of chemical, or physical
| interaction w the subject molecular entity.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This isn't even wrong. Seriously, if you want to do
| science get educated, your statements on this subject ("I
| should add that I've taken to do my own research because
| I little faith in the actual scientists to do a good job,
| and the faith that I have left is diminishing.") make me
| discard your output as 'likely noise' rather than signal.
| If you want to be taken seriously then you should make a
| minimal effort to try to understand what it is that you
| are talking about, as it is you come across as a kook and
| that likely isn't your intention.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I don't work alone, I do work with scientists who I think
| are good. When I speak in generalizations it is just that
| a generalization. Science has been subtly redefined from
| a methodology to 'what a scientist does' and scientists
| these days produce papers.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Please attack something that user said that is unfactual
| instead of engaging with his stance on other matters
| jacquesm wrote:
| I don't like your phrasing this as the need to attack
| something unfactual or not, and it's not 'other matters'
| it is precisely this matter: to come up with stuff that
| goes against established science in a way that makes it
| difficult, if not impossible to argue with.
| dekhn wrote:
| Even if it's self-modifying, can continue state, etc, the
| Turing machine analogy is a bit of a stretch. And the
| current mainstream considers the primary function of
| neurons to be their information-transmitting capability,
| rather than their self-modifying ability.
|
| Don't let my negative attitude keep you from doing
| research- I just think that epigenetics has been a bit
| overblown as a functional mechanism, or its just too hard
| to prove anything useful with experiments. Personally, if
| I was working on this I'd focus much more on neural
| differentiation during neurogenesis, rather than self-
| modification during "runtime".
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I'm aware of how attractive the information-transmitting
| analogy is given the elegance of the theory. A few simple
| rules when combined form an infinitely complex emergent
| behavior able to sufficiently explain all observations;
| what's not to love about it.
|
| I'm focusing on the epigenetic aspect of neurons due the
| possibility of the ME/CFS/LongCovid family of conditions
| being due to silencing of certain genes. The brain is
| closely linked with the immune system and I think the so
| while these present as immune conditions I believe it
| starts out more as a neural condition, maybe microglia.
| In addition it makes sense to focus on this area more as
| I can't consciously restructure the neurons in my brain
| but I can introduce peptides that change gene
| expressions.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This makes no sense in the way neurons work as far as I
| understand it. RNA 'instructions' are processed by the
| Ribosome to make proteins, it isn't software in a machine
| code sense but more of molecular specification for a piece of
| material to be produced.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome
| rolph wrote:
| in the strictest sense DNA doesnt make anything.
|
| the interaction between DNA and polymerase class nucleo-
| polymers result in assembly of sequence conservative
| polymers.
|
| for the most part this is RNAclass material, but includes
| DNA during replication and error correction events
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| DNA does more than make proteins...
| jacquesm wrote:
| DNA doesn't make proteins at all...
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Fine, DNA contains the instructions for much more than
| the production of proteins
| dekhn wrote:
| "Template" is a better term than instructions.
| User23 wrote:
| Dogs have been bred for docility not intelligence. Their wild
| cousins, wolves, are considerably more intelligent, they're
| just prone to get bored and engage in undesirable behaviors.
| I'm told that it's very easy to teach a tame wolf tricks, but
| they quickly lose interest in obviously pointless activities,
| especially as they mature.
| taneq wrote:
| So wolves have ADHD, right. :P
| svnt wrote:
| If you think about it, ADHD behaviors would likely be much
| more adaptive in the wild than non-ADHD. It is possible
| ADHD stems from genetic regression.
| tigerlily wrote:
| What are you trying to say?
| svnt wrote:
| It is possible that the selective processes that led to
| "modern" brains are essentially a process of self-
| domestication, and certain "diagnoses" are just
| reflections of diversity in that process.
|
| If society collapsed I think it would be more beneficial
| to be ADHD than not.
| emmelaich wrote:
| I've seen studies relating hyperactivity to Neanderthal
| and older genes.
|
| They persist because not enough time has passed to mutate
| them out.
| taneq wrote:
| Not them but just guessing... that most ADHD traits are
| only 'disordered' if you expect humans to be able to sit
| still, shut up, and focus exclusively on what you tell
| them to focus on for 8 hours a day?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| 'Junk' or 'useless' DNA is such silly nomenclature, because
| obviously we will learn more in the unlimited future, and we know
| so little about biology now that proclaiming anything useless is
| short-sighted to the max.
| thriftwy wrote:
| This one is quite suspicious.
|
| Imagine you're the proverbial alien tasked with introducing
| sentient life on Earth without arising much suspicion. Replacing
| useless DNA with de novo genes (of high correlation) would likely
| be your favorite approach.
|
| Whereas I'm not even sure that a million of generations is
| sufficient to evolve new genes from scratch (i.e. not via
| duplication or fixing)
|
| Wheteas
| graderjs wrote:
| I've always suspected the junk DNA is where the morphogenetic
| algorithms are kept. Published science just doesn't know how to
| decode most of morphogenesis for now.
| thriftwy wrote:
| We actually do know that, proteins which control expression of
| other genes handle the morphology. There's a gene for a left
| side, for example.
|
| But the relevant thing is, they control expression by binding
| to pieces of non-coding DNA, which can be considered "junk" by
| strict definitions. So most genes are prepended by a block of
| if-statements.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| DNA specifies proteins, anatomy is not there. Something much
| more interesting must be going on [1].
|
| [1] Morphogenesis as a Model for Computation and Basal
| Cognition by Michael Levin
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW73LgOM5Bw (Where is
| Anatomical Information Specified - from 7:30 onwards)
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| brain size correspond to muscle mass in mammals.
| kurthr wrote:
| I think your point is that size correlates with size, but that
| whales don't seem to be 10x the IQ of humans?
| nobleach wrote:
| I remember several years ago reading about "junk DNA" or "useless
| DNA" in sequences. Even then, I was certain that it probably
| wasn't "junk", we were just yet to understand it. I wish we'd
| take that attitude a bit more with science journalism. "It
| doesn't make sense..... YET".
| kzuberi wrote:
| For folks interested in understanding the subject of junk DNA a
| bit better, there's an upcoming book [1] that might be worth
| checking out. The authors blog seems also to be interesting on
| this and related subjects.
|
| [1] https://utorontopress.com/9781487508593/whats-in-your-
| genome...
| nathias wrote:
| people just need to understand that useless can become useful
| and vice versa
| jeremiep wrote:
| Read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" recently,
| science ignoring what it does not understand is far from a new
| phenomenon.
|
| Science is fantastic to dig into areas it can already see, and
| terrible at seeing new areas from the greater unknown.
| aeonik wrote:
| We studied "The History of Science in Society" by Andrew Ede
| and Lesley Cormack, which left a big impression on me.
|
| ISBN-13: 978-1442634992, ISBN-10: 1442634995
| taneq wrote:
| "Junk DNA" brought to you by the same geniuses that brought you
| "we only use 10% of our brain cells" and "the heart is where
| the spirit resides, the brain is just useless grey goo."
| seydor wrote:
| Those two are not of the same league
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Junk DNA is a junk DNA. It's not used in any way. We understand
| it.
| svnt wrote:
| This is entirely untrue.
| dekhn wrote:
| There are parts that are almost certainly not under functional
| selection and provide no benefit whatsoever- with Alu sequences
| being the best candidate. Even in tthe case of Alu, they do
| seem to have some vague effect on regulation of
| transcription... although they're not what we would call
| "genes" or "regulatory regions".
|
| In other cases, there are just lots and lots of duplicates of
| the same genes over and over. Other parts appear to be forges
| of gene creation- either through gene duplication and divergent
| evolution, or through some other mysterious mechanism we don't
| know yet.
|
| Certainly, we've had parts that looked like they were nothing
| at all and ended up being very important, and other parts that
| looked like they were incredibly important, but were really
| just the side effect of some effective parasite.
|
| It's sort of not even an interesting debate any more, as most
| of the initial positions everybody held were changed when we
| interrogated more, and better data.
| gaboot wrote:
| There are also fairly strict limits, given human mutation and
| reproductive rates, on the amount of information that can be
| preserved in the genome. Most of the genome is therefore
| meaningless (although not necessarily useless). As this
| article points out, these regions allow for random creation
| of novel proteins
| jl6 wrote:
| Even for the "no benefit whatsoever" parts, is it not
| possible that they influence (and are possibly crucial to)
| the rest of the system just by providing spacing between
| other more-apparently-functional parts?
|
| I'm thinking by analogy of executable programs that have runs
| of zeros. The zeros don't necessarily do anything, but remove
| them and everything else is out of alignment.
| dekhn wrote:
| I am open to the idea that "boring duplicated regions"
| performance some vague function through spacing. Some folks
| have proposed doing experiments where the spacers are
| removed, or replaced with other sequences, but they are
| extremely hard experiments to properly do (in a way that
| convinces the field).
|
| We already know that enhancers "work at a distance" and
| it's not clear what "distance" exactly means, and it gets
| into complicated 3D structure of the genome inside a cell;
| see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhancer_(genetics)
|
| Personally I think that the best way to think about the
| genome is to unlearn most of the preconceptions you learned
| in genetics and instead think about it in terms of
| biophysics and development and machine learning: you'll
| never realyl be able to understand the true function of
| every little bit, but you cvan probably create an
| approximate model that explains the vast majority of
| biology with relatively few variables, and some deep models
| that contain all the necessary statistics to model these
| systems accurately.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It sounds like because there is a very complex 3D
| structure that the 'spacing' function could actually be
| extremely important. Far more so than zeros in machine
| code.
| gumby wrote:
| You could make the same claim for structure padding in
| memory. I wouldn't call that useless either.
| dekhn wrote:
| I love the analogy. Many times I think about the genome as
| a bunch of machine code it's my job to reverse engineer.
| That was a good part of my career- probably 20 years-
| before I realized the problem was that it's much too hard
| to actually "prove" anything about systems like genomes.
| andai wrote:
| We need a few more copies of this gene before we can recognize
| all the patterns ;)
| VeninVidiaVicii wrote:
| Hello, ChatGPT
| rockinghigh wrote:
| Non-coding sequences have been understood as having some
| functions at least since the early 1990s. Because genome
| expression is dynamic, tracking the exact mechanisms of action
| of these sequences is challenging.
| User23 wrote:
| That was born of the widely held metaphysical position that
| evolution is purposeless. Given that assumption one would
| expect to find plenty of "junk" DNA.
| [deleted]
| Geezus-42 wrote:
| I don't think that follows as well as you think.
|
| If the primary goal is survival based primarily on efficient
| use of energy. A lot of evolution is about organisms becoming
| more efficient by adapting to their environment. So then
| keeping unnecessary junk around is inefficient and we would
| expect orgasms that lose to would benefit and out breed the
| others.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Better adapted organisms are just that - better. Not
| perfect, or free of inefficiencies. And even a perfectly
| adapted organism might not be as good at adapting to
| changes in the very long term compared to one with "junk"
| DNA. Also, does unused junk in the DNA really hurt energy
| efficiency?
| User23 wrote:
| Having our optic nerve run right through our retina
| producing a blind spot in order to capture an upside down
| and backwards image is pretty inefficient too. Evolution
| doesn't maximize efficiency, it maximizes good-enough-to-
| reproduce-ity.
| retrac wrote:
| I'm not sure where I encountered this hypothesis but I find it
| compelling. As noted by many, junk DNA, acquired from viruses
| and mutations and genome shuffling, is quite a puzzle. Why does
| it persist? It takes energy to copy, and misreading it can
| cause fatal or maladaptive mutations. From that perspective, it
| shouldn't persist (with slowly accumulating drift) for billions
| of years, as some shared junk sequences have across species.
| But it does.
|
| Obviously, because it isn't junk; it is of value to the
| organism. Even if it's not of any use right now, even if it's
| completely biologically inactive at present. Because it is
| still extremely high entropy information. They're remnants of
| solutions other living systems once used, at some point, to
| solve the problem of staying alive.
|
| If I were going to try and exploit genetic mutation to produce
| novel solutions to biological problems, I would start from an
| existing genome. In fact, I'd start with as much data, from as
| many organisms, as I could get my hands on and store. Perhaps
| we carry junk DNA because mutations in existing coded
| sequences, even mutated, currently useless ones, are far more
| likely to be functional, and so potentially a useful
| adaptation, than literal randomness. It's life's portfolio of
| solutions, badly photocopied little snippets accumulated over
| the years, and we all carry it around for future generations
| that might live in an environment where it's useful.
| tedunangst wrote:
| We should also consider that simply copying everything, even
| the junk, leads to fewer errors than selectively trying to
| identify only the good parts.
| systems_glitch wrote:
| Just like backups.
| yAak wrote:
| I feel like me keeping copies of all the code I've ever
| written is a awkwardly good analogy here.
| lowdose wrote:
| Git commitments to your autocomplete library?
| jean_tta wrote:
| From the perspective of the gene it makes sense - genes that
| are more sucesful at making offspring (aka getting copied)
| should be expected to prosper through natural selection.
| winter_blue wrote:
| > It takes energy to copy, and misreading it can cause fatal
| or maladaptive mutations
|
| Can maladaptive mutations really be caused by copying DNA
| that's not used much (as far as we can tell, like the DNA for
| endogenous retroviruses in our genome)?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Junk DNA, or near-junk DNA (active in theory, but with minimal
| effects) both:
|
| - Is extremely difficult to remove, at a worthwhile scale, from
| the genome of any large & long-lived organism
|
| - Can be thought of as a huge pile of tickets for the Extremely
| Favorable Random Mutation lottery
| folex wrote:
| pile of tickets is a very nice metaphor
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| The human genome is causing the planet to transition from a
| beautiful paradise to a seemingly useless ever-growing pile of
| trash and concrete.
| [deleted]
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Unsurprising our brains are cancerous mutations. Observing the
| world it's clear we've done little net positive with them.
| sassyonsunday wrote:
| > The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by
| overevolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it
| is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological
| times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The
| mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown
| forth, without any contact of interest with their environment.
|
| > In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of
| such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its
| bearer to the ground.
|
| https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah
| seydor wrote:
| I for one welcome our big brain mouse overlords. We frankly know
| more about them than we know about ourselves.
| [deleted]
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