Gene Mappers May Have Missed Half The Genes

Nepre writes: "Forbes.com is running a story about new research that suggests that the Human Genome Project may have missed tens of thousands of genes in the race to map the human genome. This is interesting given the intense competition between commercial and academic research. As my grandmother used to say, "The faster you go, the behinder you get!""

Comments

I don't buy it - not yet, at least.

[Ieshan]

I'm rather concerned by some of the statements these guys made, before we put too much credibility in his findings.

"If the mouse and human genomes were so similar, we would be mice," says Shoemaker.

Well, Mr. Shoemaker, to be quite honest, we're not that far off, evolutionary speaking. We share the same classification as mammals, have hundreds of bodily functions that are nothing short of the same, share very complex behavioral patterns, and study the guys in an attempt to find out how our own brains work (go ask a research neurologist). If the man who says this is the director of anything, we need to push him off of his pedestal and teach him some biology.

"Before you count genes, you really need to define what a gene is," says Daniel Shoemaker.

Basically, it seems like the guy is "trolling". "Nuh uh, Taco!", he's saying. "The Theory of Graviity must be wrong because you mis-spelled gravity!" Really, he's saying that people are wrong, and then saying he's right, and then saying that the criteria he's used to make this sort of judgement doesn't exist in the first place.

No definition for a gene? "A unit of heredity. The unit of genetic function which carries the information for a single polypeptide."