Phlebotinum Du Jour: Difference between revisions

** "Junk" DNA: 95-99% of our DNA is not currently expressed as proteins. Fiction likes to repurpose it as disk space for a message from ancient alien visitors and the like. In reality what we have found so far is old genes we don't use anymore (no longer being, say, fish), ancient malware (viral retrotransposons), code that indirectly controls gene expression, "introns" in the middles of genes that make it harder for viral DNA to latch on to them, and information-poor repeating sections we still don't understand but which might be as unglamorous as physical spacers to aid the gene expression pathway.

** Relatedly, epigenetics might go this way (what with the hype about it in the popular press).

** [[Magical Particle Accelerator|Particle Acclerators]]. In particular, the LHC.