As you all know, Francis Crick was a co-author of the Nobel Prize-winning work on the structure of the DNA molecule, which was first published in 1953. He also played a major role in the subsequent deciphering of the genetic code (with a key study published in 1961), among other important contributions made throughout […]
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UPDATE: The authors of this paper were rather upset by my initial description of it, so I will just say that I found it very confusing and leave it at that. See the abstract below and check out the paper if you are interested. Freeling, M.W., Xu, J., Woodhouse, M., and Lisch, D.R. (2015). […] Sydney Brenner is a well-known figure in genetics, having made major contributions to our understanding of gene function and establishing Caenorhabditis elegans as the enormously popular model organism that it is today. He shared the 2002 Nobel Prize for “discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death’”. He was also outspoken about various […] In a recent paper, Morris and Mattick (2014) claim that: “The discovery of introns in 1977 was perhaps the biggest surprise in the history of molecular biology, as no one expected that the genes of higher organisms would be mosaics of coding and non-coding sequences, all of which are transcribed. However, the prevailing concept […]
Anyone interested in the topic of “junk DNA” should go and read this fine piece of detective work by Dan Graur immediately! http://judgestarling.tumblr.com/post/64504735261/the-origin-of-junk-dna-a-historical-whodunnit
In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by extension, my area of research in genome size evolution) that the subject gets regular media attention. A few months ago, it was all about the ENCODE project and its “finding” of “function” for 80% of […] Here’s a short compilation I made for use in a recent presentation on ENCODE and the claim that 80% of the human genome is functional. These are quotes from ENCODE project leaders and the senior editor of Nature. It is not surprising that the story presented by the media was that ENCODE had destroyed […] There has been lots of talk (including some in the media; see here and here and here) about the Graur et al. (2013) paper in GBE which was critical of ENCODE, much of it focusing on the tone of the paper. While the Graur et al. (2013) paper certainly doesn’t pull any punches in […] Say what you want about the tone of the Graur et al. (2013) paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, but it has people talking. Including Ewan Birney, the lead scientist of the ENCODE project and the primary spokesperson for ENCODE in the media fiasco describing the “death of junk DNA”. Most recently, Birney was […] I expect that we will be seeing several harsh critiques of ENCODE’s extraordinary claims about function in the human genome and the equally incredible mega-hype associated with the project. I know of at least one more that is forthcoming from a heavy-hitter in the field, but as a snarky smackdown, it will be very […] |
T. Ryan Gregory 
I am an evolutionary biologist specializing in genome size evolution at the University of Guelph in Canada.
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