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Scientists Discover 'Treasure' in 'Junk DNA'

Thousands of years ago the Bible declared that every human being is "fearfully and wonderfully made." Now modern science is finally realizing the fear and wonder of our creation.

Consider this example: Your body is made up of about one hundred, million, million cells. Each of these cells has a complete set of instructions about how to make your cells and your cells' components. This set of instructions is called the human genome.

Your genome is packed with at least four million gene switches that reside in bits of DNA. For years, scientists thought that many of these bits of DNA were useless. In the 1970s, Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA's structure, suspected it was all "little better than junk." The phrase "junk DNA" has haunted human genetics ever since. In the early 2000s, scientists still believed that perhaps 97 percent of what's called "the sequence of bases" in human DNA had no apparent function.

But in September, 2012, a team of 440 scientists from 32 labs around the world made a startling discovery: Your "junk DNA" really isn't junky after all. As these scientists delved further into "the junk," they discovered a complex system that controls genes. Apparently, so far these scientists have determined that 80 percent of this DNA is active and needed. It turns out that what was called "junk" is now called a "hidden treasure"—a treasure that plays a critical role in controlling how cells, organs, and other tissues behave.

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