DRAMATIC Discoveries About What
Humans Really Are
(Top Posts - Science - 021801)

One comment - This post includes details
on one of the most exciting and dramatic
advances in human understanding of our true
place in the grand scheme of life and matter ...

... ever!

Tons of details are available - if you have not
the time or the patience to study the vast
details, I suggest you at the very least scan
this post and reflect on the dramatic implica-
tions for humankind as to how we developed
and what we truly are ...

4 Major Points:

1) Human genes, significantly fewer than
expected, ~30,000, about 300 more than
a mouse

2) Genetic instructions for a human take up
less than one inch of the six-foot-long strand
of DNA inside virtually every cell in the body

3) Most human DNA is filled with weird
life-like squatters, foreign DNA that live like
parasites on human DNA and even smaller
bits that sponge off those parasites

4) Sperm carry twice as many mutations
as eggs, suggesting that men are the major
source of genetic errors as well as evolu-
tionary innovation

- - -

Sunday, 11 February, 2001, 08:17 GMT
Genome map heralds medical advances
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1164000/1164014.stm

Excerpt:

...

Data from the genome project should help fight
such diseases as diabetes and cancer, drug
addiction and even mental illness, bringing
possible cures much closer.

The scientists have found that human beings have
many fewer genes than they thought, around 30,000,
only 300 more than a mouse.

One of the implications is that environment must
play a crucial role in human development, as well
as genes.

...

"Most of us thought that there were somewhere
between 50,000 and 100,000 genes but we were
stunned that we only have between 26,000 and
30,000," Dr Venter told the BBC.

"So we have about twice as many genes as a fruit
fly, we only have 300 more genes than a mouse.

"The implications of this are absolutely phenomenal
for all of us because my interpretation of this is it
means we're not hardwired."

"Discoveries will be made to save hopefully a very
large number of those lives of people who would
have died from terrible diseases," he said.

...

- - -

Life's Blueprint in Less Than an Inch
Only a Small DNA Segment Makes a Human
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 11, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54653-2001Feb10.html

Excerpt:

All the instructions for making a human being
are packed within a surprisingly small number
of genes -- only about twice the number needed
to grow a worm or a fly -- according to the first
detailed analysis of the entire human genetic code.

Moreover, hundreds of those genes, including
one that's been implicated in depression, are
actually genes from bacteria that infected human
predecessors millions of years ago and left their
microbial DNA behind.

But perhaps most remarkable, scientists said, is
how little of the human genome -- the 23 pairs of
chromosomes that contain the blueprint for human
life -- is directly devoted to making human beings,
and how much other biological activity is going on
throughout the rest of the genome.

The genetic instructions for making a person take
up less than one inch of the six-foot-long strand of
DNA that's stuffed inside virtually every cell in the
body, according to the new findings. Most of the
rest of the human genome is filled with weird life-like
entities that have settled in the genome like squatters.
Among them are microscopic bits of foreign DNA
that live like parasites on human DNA and even
smaller bits that sponge off those parasites.

Although scientists have known that such critters
existed in the human genome, only now have they
been able to see how many there really are, how
they are distributed among people's genes, and
how these complex communities evolved inside
the cells of human ancestors over millions of
years.

...

The work answers some long-standing questions,
such as why the human sense of smell is so crude
compared with that of many other mammals: In
the past 10 million years, it turns out, pre-humans
have lost more than half of the 1,000 olfactory
genes their ancestors once had, apparently
choosing to concentrate on vision and other
senses instead.

...

One surprise is that the genome is populated with
duplicate copies of many disease-causing genes --
shadowy genetic "twins" that scientists had never
seen before but that in many cases also cause
diseases.

Another is that sperm carry twice as many mutations
as eggs, suggesting that men are the major source of
genetic errors in offspring but also the major source
of evolutionary innovation.

...

It's a humbling perspective, said Robert Waterston,
director of Washington University's genome center
in St. Louis. A person who gazes upon the human
genome is likely to walk away feeling a little bit less
the center of attention, he said -- less certain about
being the sole purpose of it all.

"You can't study the genome for very long before
you start feeling that you're just a transient vehicle
for making more DNA," Waterston said.

But not just any vehicle.

One with the curiosity, ingenuity and wherewithal to
explore and decipher its own genetic code.

- - -

Genome study: Humans have remarkably few genes
http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/02/10/humangenome.02/index.html

- - -

Human genome published,
just twice size of fruit fly’s
Man more similar to humble creatures than thought

The following link is no longer available:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/528553.asp

Excerpt:

Feb. 10 — Widely considered the greatest
scientific breakthrough of our time, the mapping
of the human genome has finally become public,
allowing a sharing of information that promises
to revolutionize the understanding and treatment
of diseases.

The feat is also humbling for mankind, showing
humans are much more genetically similar to the
simple fruit fly than previously thought.

...

Some 200 human genes apparently arose from
genes that were somehow inserted into humanity’s
early vertebrate ancestors by bacteria.

...

Crystal ball of genetic developments
over the next 50 years.
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/Genetic_timeline/

- - -

First Reading
Scientists Detail Human Genetic Code

(link no longer available)
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/humangenome010211.html

Excerpt:

Feb. 11 - ... Scientists announced today that they
have the first reading of the human genetic code,
a feat some researchers compare to Copernicus
determining the Earth revolved around the Sun,
or Charles Darwin's formulating the theory of
evolution.

...

They had expected about 100,000 genes per person.
Instead, they found about 30,000 — only twice as
many as a fly has, and 10,000 more than a worm.

"That comes as a bit of a shock," said Dr. Craig
Venter, who heads the Maryland-based Celera
Genomics Corp.

"When you consider that other organisms that we
know a lot about, like yeast and worms and flies and
plants, have gene counts in some instances very close
to that," he said.

...

"It will fundamentally change medicine," Venter said.
"It will give you power over your own life, instead of
just randomly waiting for symptoms to appear — by
the time they appear it's probably too late."

Scientists hope the genome work will help them find
disease-promoting genes, develop better drugs, tailor
therapies to particular patients, evaluate environmental
hazards and study human evolution and migration.

The genome is the instruction book for the human
species.

...

Data Show Humans Are 99.8 Percent the Same

Among the other findings, researchers for the Human
Genome Project found that human beings are genetically
99.8 percent identical, regardless of race or looks or
where they were born.

...

- - -

Nature - Genome Gateway
http://www.nature.com/genomics/human/

Excerpt:

It is with great pleasure that Nature presents this
special section of the Genome Gateway to mark
the publication of the initial sequencing and analysis
of the human genome.

We are delighted to uphold the principle at the heart
of the Human Genome Project: free and unrestricted
access to all our genome related material through
these web pages.

...

Science Magazine
Human Genome Special Issue:
Free Access to All Users
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol291/issue5507/

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