In a message dated 1/1/00 15:56:21, newstrom@newstaffinc.com wrote:
>This is not as much as a "Duh!" as you think. It is was currently believed
>that DNA defines an animal's appearance and much of its personality. These
>clones had identical DNA and different egg cells. The egg cells were
>thought to be empty containers to hold the DNA. Now that the animals look
>and act different, it appears that DNA is not the end-all blueprint that we
>thought it was. Apparently, much of the animals definition comes from
>non-DNA sources.
This is no surprise: identical twins can be different, Not only is
environment important, some genes have stochastic effects similar to
symmetry-breaking. The mother, incidentally, is a substantial part of
the environment.
>This throws much of our assumptions about genetics out the window.
Only if the differences are heritable. Also, you may be getting changes
from telomere shortening, transposon relocation, etc. Those would not
force us to throw out assumptions, just indicate that certain intracellular
genomics we current think are unimportant make a big difference.
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