At 08:26 PM 12/27/2012, Jojo Jaro wrote:
Well, Jed's story says that we can "store" exabytes of data.
Yes, but only if we don't mind that it's exabytes of copies of about 1.5 gigabytes of data.
Nowadays, we only use the "coding" part of DNA to figure out the amount of "information". Scientists erroneously assume the non-coding parts are "junk DNA" that have no information. That is not true. The non-coding parts are not Junk. Newer research are indicating that all of our DNA have functions we still do not know or understand. If they have function, they contain information we don't know about yet.
That's an exaggeration of "new research." Some functions are being found for some "noncoding" DNA. I've understood "noncoding DNA" to refer to sequences that are not used to create proteins. There can be a few other functions, for example, telomeres are noncoding, but serve to protect chromosomes from copying errors at the ends.
There is an interesting piece of evidence. Noncoding DNA much more rapidly mutates because of lack of selection pressure. Noncoding DNA gives a measure of time since organisms diverged. If this DNA were serving a critical biological function, it would be under selection pressure.
(Most mutations of critical genes kill the cell or the organism, babies spontaneously abort, etc.)
