Re: Man's best friend shares most genes with humans

Although I may run the risk of falling for another one of Janice's
practical jokes, I'd like to comment on these poorly argued cases.

For instance "*Chimp genome sequence very different from man " *Rather
than the two genomes being 98.5% similar, the data suggest 95--96%
similar. That's hardly 'very different from man'.

I found most of the Freerepublic 'articles' addressing evolution to be
suffering from serious lack of scientific relevance.

Now the Dog genome

The dog research also helps reveal the evolutionary pedigree of human
genes.

Humans and hounds branched off about 95 million years ago, yet nearly
all of the estimated 19,300 dog genes correspond to similar genes in
humans. But dog cells break their DNA into 78 chromosomes, compared with
46 in human cells.

As scientists compare the gene maps of the two species, they're
beginning to wonder if humans really have 23,000 or more genes, as once
thought, or if some genes really are just "junk DNA" that don't actually
have any function.

Moreover, in comparing human, dog and mouse gene maps, researchers found
that about 5 percent of the genes in all three species have gone
virtually unchanged over the past 100 million years, and that preserved
DNA is clustered in genes that regulate proteins involved in development.

More at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/guide/dog/

So perhaps I should have gone with my first hunch, namely that this is
just another practical joke?

Janice Matchett wrote:

> Item of interest. ~ Janice :)
>
> *Man's best friend shares most genes with humans
> *The San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Carl T. Hall
>
> *Click to see picture: *
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536362/posts?page=20#20
>
> Also see:
>
> *Chimp genome sequence very different from man
> * http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1478385/posts
Received on Thu Dec 8 13:19:01 2005