Much has been made of the claim in one of the new ENCODE papers regarding the demise of the concept of “junkDNA” and the claim that 80% of the genome is “functional.” However, even members of the ENCODE consortium seem to be backing off. One of them, Max Libbrecht, when asked about the 80% figure, linked to this article:
ENCODE says what?
which has a great summary of the research pertaining to ‘junkDNA’ and explains how/why the claim of 80% of the genome being “functional” is at best a stretch.
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