For many years molecular biologists have been mystified by the fact that very little of an organism's DNA seems to serve any useful function.
I have solved the mystery.
The reason why only 30% of human DNA performs any useful function is that the rest of it is comments.
Once we decode a typical human genome, we see that the contents begin as follows:
=== /* HUMAN_DNA.H * * Human Genome * Version 2.1 * * (C) God */ /* Revision history: * * 0000-00-01 00:00 1.0 Adam. * 0000-00-02 10:00 1.1 Eve. * 0000-00-03 02:11 1.2 Added penis code to male version. A bit messy -- will require a rewrite later on to make it neater. * 0017-03-12 03:14 1.3 Added extra sex drive to male.h; took code from elephant-dna.c * 0145-10-03 16:33 1.4 Removed tail. * 1115-00-31 17:20 1.5 Shortened forearms, expanded brain case. * 2091-08-20 13:56 1.6 Opposable thumbs added to hand() routine. * 2501-04-09 14:04 1.7 Minor cosmetic improvements -- skin colour made darker to match my own image. * 2909-07-12 02:21 1.8 Dentition inadequate; added extra 'wisdom' teeth. Must remember to make mouth bigger to compensate. * 4501-12-31 14:18 1.9 Increase average height. * 5533-02-12 17:09 2.0 Added gay option, triggered by high population density (to try and slow the overpopulation problem). * 6004-11-04 16:11 2.1 Made forefinger narrower to fit hole in centre of CD. */ /* Standard definitions */ #define SEX male #define HEIGHT 1.84 #define MASS 68 /* Include inherited traits from parent DNA files. * * Files must be pre-processed with MENDEL program to provide proper inheritance features. */#include "mother.h" #include "father.h" #infndef FATHER #warn("Father unknown -- guessing\n") #include "bastard.h" #endif /* Set up sex-specific functions and variables */ #include
/* Kludged code -- I'll re-design this lot and re-write it as a proper library sometime soon. */ struct genitals { #ifdef MALE Penis *jt; #endif /* G_spot *g; Removed for debugging purposes */ #ifdef FEMALE Vagina *p; #endif } /* Initialization bootstrap routine -- called before DNA duplication. * Allocates buffers and sets up protein file pointers */ DNA *zygote_initialize(Sperm *, Ovum *); /* MAIN INITIALIZATION CODE * * Returns structures containing pre-processed phenotypes for the organism to display at birth. * * Will be improved later to make output less ugly. */ Characteristic *lookup_phenotype(Identifier *i); === ...and so on.
