2 thoughts on “New Twist in microRNA biology”

1. about as surprising as discovering that a mold used to cast a metal tool can also serve as a tool itself

   Not at all suprising if either:

   1. You have a complete neophyte designer who thinks that in addition to having a need for a tool cast, he wants to get at the same time a file to sharpen it and doesn’t care how it fits in the hand. The centuries of grief the abandonment of K.I.S.S. engineering principles will be directly attributable to such a unqualified designer. Or…
   2. Things like the mold are developed piecewise by unintellegent agents from ancestor blobs and templates for blobs that serve a useful function are communicated to other agents for templates to continue the common descent with undirected changes accumulating over time. In such a model, if the blob has two functions, that makes it likely to outcompete a “designed” alternative which neglects one function for only modest gains for the other function.

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2. So microRNA genes can overlap on different strands? That’s pretty cool, but I don’t think quite “never even been hypothesized” level…

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