On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Our genetic closet holds skeletons. The bones of long-dead genes--known as pseudogenes--litter our chromosomes. But like other fossils, they illuminate the evolutionary history of today's more familiar forms, and emerging evidence indicates that a few of these DNA dinosaurs may not be quite so dead after all. Signs of activity among pseudogenes are another reminder that although the project to sequence the human genome (the complete set of genetic information in the nuclei of our cells) was officially finished, scientists are still just beginning to unravel its complexities.
It is already clear that a whole genome is less like a static library of information than an active computer operating system for a living thing. Pseudogenes may analogously be vestiges of old code associated with defunct routines, but they also constitute a fascinating record contained within the overall program of how it has grown and diversified over time. As products of the processes by which genomes remodel and update themselves, pseudogenes are providing new insights into those dynamics, as well as hints about their own, possibly ongoing, role in our genome.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
