New Class of Genes Discovered 106
HarryGenes writes "Reuters is reporting that Scientists Find New Type of Gene in Junk DNA. The research from Harvard Medical School describes a discovery in the Yeast Genome of a new class of gene that regulates the neighboring gene through the production of its RNA product. This has much broader implications than the article lets on to. Assuming these same type of genes exist in Humans and other organisms, the whole science behind gene expression and gene mapping will be changed dramatically. This type of mechanism can explain a lot of the 'unexplainable'. This is really exciting. I have been working in gene mapping for years and always felt that the 'junk' was there for a reason."
Mmm, sexy. (Score:5, Funny)
Human females have a more pronounced season of going into and out of heat.
Get an extra furrowed forehead... [and] large hairy ears
Well, those two should help cancel each other out, no?
Junk DNA == Slashdot Trolls (Score:4, Funny)
Since I'm bored today, I'll try my hand at rewriting the Reuters article.
Slashdotters Find New Type of Moderation in Troll Postings
LONDON (Reuters) - Troll posts may not be so useless after all.
Slashdotters coined the term to describe the textual wasteland within the Slashdot database, or book of posts, which consists of long uncharted stretches of text for which there is no known function.
But researchers from Hard Vard Medical School in Jamaica said on Wednesday that within troll postings in the Science database they have discovered a new class of post.
Unlike other posts, the new one does not produce an Insightful or Interesting comment to carry out its function. But when it is browsed at -1, it moderates a neighboring post.
"This doesn't explain all troll posting. It gives a potential use for some troll posting," Professor Red Finster, who headed the research team, said in a made-up Slashdot posting.
"I cannot think of another regulatory post such as this one," he added.
There are about 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 posts in the Slashdot database. Much of the database consists of troll postings which scientists are trying to decipher to determine the causes and potential treatments for boring, inane discussions.
The new troll called GOAT1 blocks the function of the adjacent posting in the Science database. Finster and his team, who reported their finding in the science journal UnNature-al, believe other trolls could work in the same way and in other databases including the main database.
"We found one example of a type of troll posting that hasn't been found before that might alert investigators to look for it in other offtopic discussions," Finster said.
"This type of moderation may occur in other cases throughout the message board kingdom," he added.
The new troll works by making Frustration, a cousin of Interest, which causes down-moderation or turning off the adjacent post.
"When people are looking to understand the regulation of posts from whatever database -- main, games, Apple, science -- they cannot just look for messages that are acting there. It might be that it is simply the act of moderating that is causing regulation," said Finster.
The Moderation alphabet consists of several moderations -- Flamebait and Troll to Insightful and Informative -- which carry instructions for making all databases. The sum of the moderations carries the score. Each set of moderations corresponds to a single comment score, which join up in many different combinations to make discussions.
"We want to understand the psychology behind the regulation (of the postings). It is a previously unidentified type of moderation and if we could understand how it is controlled, we will learn more about Slashdot moderation," said Finster.
Re:Yeah, But (Score:4, Funny)
Lots of Junk (Score:3, Funny)
Nature is a pack rat. Get used to it...
Re:The more you know....... (Score:3, Funny)
"Feed me Seymore!!"