Arbieroo reviewed Junk DNA by Nessa Carey
Review of 'Junk DNA' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Carey follows up her book on epigenetics (essentially the effects of parts of DNA that aren't the base-pairs that make up genes) with another that looks at the 98% of your DNA that doesn't code for proteins, generally referred to as "junk" because it was believed it had no biological function.
This model, that all you need to understand cellular life is a list of the protein-coding segments of DNA, has completely colapsed. Numerous DNA sequences that have nothing directly to do with protein manufacture have been found to be essential to the proper functioning of cells in complex life. You can learn about many of them here, in a very clear, fair and balanced way.
I have become interested in the actual chemistry of the various processes Carey describes in her first two books at the level of metaphor. I'm not sure where to find out about that, short …
Carey follows up her book on epigenetics (essentially the effects of parts of DNA that aren't the base-pairs that make up genes) with another that looks at the 98% of your DNA that doesn't code for proteins, generally referred to as "junk" because it was believed it had no biological function.
This model, that all you need to understand cellular life is a list of the protein-coding segments of DNA, has completely colapsed. Numerous DNA sequences that have nothing directly to do with protein manufacture have been found to be essential to the proper functioning of cells in complex life. You can learn about many of them here, in a very clear, fair and balanced way.
I have become interested in the actual chemistry of the various processes Carey describes in her first two books at the level of metaphor. I'm not sure where to find out about that, short of an academic text. Similarly, although the references to the academic literature are all present and correct, Carey glosses over the details of the experiments used to reach the conclusions expressed. A book about that would go down well, too.
Carey has a book about gene editing and CRISPR - I'm looking forward to reading that, too.
