The Smithsonian Jumps on the Anti-Junk DNA Bandwagon

The Smithsonian Museums are highly respected but that doesn't mean their website is scientifically accurate [Junk DNA Isn’t Junk, and That Isn’t Really News].

Remember in high school or college, when you learned about all that DNA inside of you that was junk? The strings and strings of nonsense code that had no function? A recent blitz of papers from the ENCODE project have the world abuzz with news that would rip that idea apart.

But, like many things that stick around in text books long after science has moved on, the “junk DNA” idea that ENCODE disproved, didn’t really need disproving in the first place. Even in 1972, scientists recognized that just because we didn’t know what certain DNA regions did, didn’t make them junk.

This is getting very depressing.

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