From g.kossatz from gmx.de Tue Jun 5 16:55:55 2007 From: g.kossatz from gmx.de (sgk) Date: Wed Jun 6 15:36:09 2007 Subject: [Chromosomes] codon usage bias in humans ? Message-ID: Hi, I have been studying biology in the 70s and been out of the loop for a while. I came across this on the web and try to figure if it makes any scientific sense - I know all possible codons are assigned to amino acids (or stop/start) but is there a bias in humans as to not use any of them or many as proposed here: does the following text make any sense? ------------------- He was taken to UCLA to see what was going on and those tests showed that he didn't have normal human DNA. In the human DNA we have 4 nucleic acids that combine in sets of 3 producing 64 different patterns that are called codons. Human DNA all over the world always has 20 of these codons turned on and the rest of them are turned off, except for 3 which are the stop and start codes, much like a computer. Science always assumed that the ones that were turned off were old programs from our past. I've always seen them like application programs in a computer. Anyway...this boy had 24 codons turned on - 4 more than any other human being. Then they tested this kid to see how strong his immune system was. ---------------------- thanx -sam