Though your junk DNA idea is interesting and certainly worth discussion, at
least IMHO in the last half of your post you are exactly describing
non-coding DNA.  There are a suite of enzymes that not only detect pairing
mismatches between the coding and non-coding strand during DNA replication
but also fix the error (e.g. through 3'->5' exonuclease activity).


> Is it possible that some of the so called "junk dna" might be for
> error correction? I am trying to compare the biological process with
> the information theory. Parity is generally a very weak protection for
> integrity of information and can only be used to detect errors. I was
> thinking it might be wonderful if nature had its mechanism for
> error-correction(not just detection). In our information world we do
> this correction by various(mostly not intuitive) methods. All the
> methods however depend on storing extra information along with the
> original data(the extra info is related to the original data in some
> way). So I was just fascinated by such a possibility( using junk dna).
>
> Comments?
>
> Srinivas S
>
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 11/5/02 6:36:34 PM