“Fantom” project finds genetic words, reported in the Courier Mail 3 Sep 2005 and Science vol. 309, p1559, 2 Sep 2005.
A group of scientists working in Australia, Japan and Greece has studied the mouse genome to see how genetic information is organised and used within cells. The project, called FANTOM, for Function Annotation of the Mouse, looked for beginnings and ends of genes and how they were arranged in the DNA strands. The mouse genome sequence was completed in 2002 but that only revealed how the DNA letters were lined up. In order to understand how living things work we need to know how their DNA letters are formed into meaningful words and sentences.
David Hume of the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, who participated in the study, explained: “Genes provide the code for making the building blocks of our bodies – the proteins – and the consortium has made a massive step towards identifying all of those building blocks. But the genome must also contain the code to ensure that protein building blocks are made in the right place at the right time.”
Christine Wells of Griffith University commented: “The information we have gathered is an annotation exercise of huge importance – we are learning the genetic language used by cells, discovering how to read the words, construct and punctuate the sentences that create a story unique to every cell, tissue and individual.” Wells also commented that differences between individuals and species were in the way the genetic words were used, rather than in the order of DNA letters in the words.
Editorial Comment: This project reminds us that we cannot understand how similar or different two species are until we can not only identify individual DNA letters, but read the genome words and sentences for meaning. Since DNA is a code, small changes can make a large difference in meaning.
Consider this coded information: “God is now here” and “God is nowhere”. The code letters are 100% the same yet the meaning is made 100% different by merely changing one space. In the same way, a small difference in the organization of DNA letters, especially in genes that turn other genes on and off, can make a big difference in the structure and function of a living organism. Keep this in mind when evolutionists claim that human and chimp gene letters are 95% to 99% the same. When they finally work out where all the genetic words, sentences and spaces are, Creation Research predicts they will conclude apes and people really are 100% different, which is why chimps don’t read the Bible to find out man was made in God’s image and they were not!
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