Year: 2022

RISE OF RNA AGENTS. "Since Barbara McClintock’s far-reaching detection of mobile genetic elements, the RNA world hypothesis followed by the rise of RNA biology and the comeback of virology, we have a variety of terms for RNA agents that play essential roles in natural genetic engineering and natural genome editing." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

ERROR VERSUS INTENTIONALITY. "The abundance of empirical data concerning non-random genetic change operators such as the variety of mobile genetic elements, persistent viruses and defectives do not fit with the dominant narrative of error replication events (mutations) as being the main driving forces creating genetic novelty and diversity." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

ACTIVE GENOME EDITING AGENTS. "The reductionistic and mechanistic views on physico-chemical properties of the genetic code are no longer convincing as appropriate descriptions of the abundance of non-random genetic content operators which are active in natural genetic engineering and natural genome editing." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

OLD ASSUMPTION. "For decades it was assumed that if the genetic code represents a context-free universal grammar determined exclusively by natural laws, copying events can form only identical copies of the wild type. If there is any change in such copies it is correct to term them as replication errors. Error replications (mutations) are a key element in explanatory models of the evolutionary origin of genetic diversity, being the ultimate resource for biological selection." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

BRINKMANSHIP. "More detailed, error-prone RNAs are a resource for generating genetic diversity followed by selection out of cumulative series of error replications. If the error rate is too high, then genetic content gets lost, followed by quasi-species collapse." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

DNA AS EMERGENT PROPERTY. "Thus the genetic code looks like an emergent property of self-organizing matter and information that underlies natural laws such as thermodynamics, kinetics, atomic structure and their binding forces." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

EMERGED GENOTYPE-PHENOTYPE. "RNA world agents: where the genotype is the phenotype. With the split into a RNA world and a DNA world that codes for proteins with a non-repeat genetic syntax the split between the genotype and the phenotype emerged." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

THE DNA WORLD. "The genetic code now also codes for proteins and the protein enzymes form the protein bodies, which we know as cells, cellular parts that organize metabolism, tissues, organs and organisms, all of which we term life from the most primitive last universal common ancestor to human beings." https://lnkd.in/eg6uePF View in LinkedIn

NEW DATA CHALLENGES. Old assumptions about molecular biology are challenged by new information that has accumulated in recent decades. A shift in paradigm significantly alters the Darwinian view of evolution that we have held for decades. The following seven points are key pieces of this challenge to old thinking. And of course, there are those who resist new thinking. View in LinkedIn

NEW INFO #1. "Barbara McClintock’s thoughts and experiments found mobile genetic elements that actively influence the shape of genomes and their internal interactions." Jumping genes, retrotransposons (etc) got a hugely negative reception from fellow scientists when first proposed but landed McClintoch a well-deserved Nobel prize. https://lnkd.in/eUYvi8e View in LinkedIn