Re: SCI:BIO: raw genome length not a good measure of organism complexity

Mitchell Porter (mitch@thehub.com.au)
Wed, 15 Jan 1997 09:57:27 +1000 (EST)


[Eliezer]
> So if 90% of it is comments, unused code, or padding, who cares? The
> amount of data needed to assemble a soul still has an upper limit
> smaller than my hard drive... even if all that extra DNA is being used
> by neurons, which I understand are now supposed to be capable of reading
> (though, thank God, not altering) DNA.

Could you give a source? Or explain what you mean by "reading"? Every
cell "reads" DNA, in one sense (makes messenger RNA and sends it to the
ribosomes), in the process of manufacturing proteins.

-mitch
http://www.thehub.com.au/~mitch