Death and Resurrection ... Of a Gene

The SLAMF9 gene became non-functional in the human lineage, and then later was re-activated. Why? Biology is amazingly intricate, but it is often also needlessly complex- evidence for the haphazard, if eventually pointed, mechanisms of the evolutionary process. We will take up the discussion of "junk" DNA again next week, but molecular biology is full of redundant and excessive processes, which…