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ABC News: 'Junk DNA' not junk after all

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Dr Karl sits in ABC studio
ABC News: 'Junk DNA' not junk after all

SUBJECTS:  Science

YEARS:  9–10


Geneticists have long thought that 98 per cent of human DNA was 'junk' (or 'non-coding') DNA.

However, recent scientific research suggests that there is much more to this DNA than first thought. Watch this clip to discover more.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Have you heard of 'junk' or 'non-coding DNA' before? How is it thought to be different from 'coding DNA'?
  2. 2.Dr Kruszelnicki describes three new discoveries about what was known as 'junk DNA'. See if you can you list each of them.
  3. 3.Draw a table with three columns. In the first column describe what geneticists first thought about the nature of what they called junk DNA. In the second column describe what geneticists think now. In the third column list the questions still left to be answered about non-coding DNA.
  4. 4.Conduct an internet search on the ENCODE Project to discover more. See if you can locate resources about ENCODE designed specifically for secondary students.


Date of broadcast: 6 Jan 2013


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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