Challenging the Junk DNA Paradigm: The Impact of Non-Coding RNAs

For decades, evolutionary biologists considered non-coding regions of DNA as evolutionary junk, a paradigm that long dissuaded researchers from studying these little-understood portions of the genome. But a series of discoveries starting in 2008 has forced a major change in thinking about so-called "junk" DNA. Many examples of function have since been identified for the non-coding regions of DNA, and more are being uncovered each year. On this ID The Future, Dr. Casey Luskin reports on a pair of American biologists who were recently awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery of function in what was previously considered junk DNA.

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