Students in a special topics course at the University of Michigan were taught how to edit a Wikipedia article in order to promote function in repetitive DNA and downplay junk.
The Wikipedia article on Repeated sequence (DNA) was heavily edited today by students who were taking an undergraduate course at the University of Michgan. One of the Student leaders, Rasberry Neuron, left the following message on the "Talk" page.
This page was edited for a course assignment at the University of Michigan. The editing process included peer review by four students, the Chemistry librarian at the University of Michigan, and course instructors. The edits published on 12/01/2022 reflect improvements guided by the original editing team and the peer review feedback. See the article's History page for information about what changes were made from the previous version.
References to junk DNA were removed by the students but quickly added back by Paul Gardner who is currently fixing other errors that the students have made.
I checked out the webpage for the course at CHEM 455_505 Special Topics in Biochemistry - Nucleic Acids Biochemistry. The course description is quite revealing.
We now realize that the human genome contains at least 80,000 non-redundant non-coding RNA genes, outnumbering protein-coding genes by at least 4-fold, a revolutionary insight that has led some researchers to dub the eukaryotic cell an “RNA machine”. How exactly these ncRNAs guide every cellular function – from the maintenance and processing to the regulated expression of all genetic information – lies at the leading edge of the modern biosciences, from stem cell to cancer research. This course will provide an equally broad as deep overview of the structure, function and biology of DNA and particularly RNA. We will explore important examples from the current literature and the course content will evolve accordingly.
The class will be taught from a chemical/molecular perspective and will bring modern interdisciplinary concepts from biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology to the fore.
Most of you will recognize right away that there are factually incorrect statements (i.e. lies) in that description. It is not true that there are at least 80,000 noncoding genes in the human genome. At some point in the future that may turn out to be true but it's highly unlikely. Right now, there are at most 5,000 proven noncoding genes. There are many scientists who claim that the mere existence of a noncoding transcript is proof that a corresponding gene must exist but that's not how science works. Before declaring that a gene exists you actually have to have evidence that it produces a biologically relevant product [Most lncRNAs are junk].
I'm going to email a link to this post to the course instructors and some of the students. Let's see if we can get them to discuss junk DNA.
