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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: So Far
Message-ID: <1137@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 17:39:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1137
Posted: Thu May 23 17:39:11 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 25-May-85 05:24:05 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
Lines: 28


>> [Paul DuBois]
>> ...
>> (My prediction regarding the future interpretation of the divergences
>> in the genetic code that have been found recently)

> [Dave Fritzinger]
> If you read the articles, I think you'll see that the changes in the code
> are really quite minor.  By this I mean that one or two stop codons have
> been changed so that they now code for an amino acid.

The changes found *so far* are minor.  What percentage of the organisms
on the earth have been studied?  Are you willing to say that we'll
*never* find any further divergences?  I'm not saying we *will* -- how
would I know? -- but we certainly can't say we *won't*.  How about
Z-DNA?  What's next?

> It's still pretty
> amazing that human beings and E. coli both have the same code, and it must
> say something about the relatedness of life on Earth.

Yes, but what?

-- 
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Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
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