We’re not “playing god” with DNA. We’re playing “not-too-bright kindergartener with razor blades.” All around the globe, people are actively manipulating genes just as top scientists say, “hey, who knew? ”

My hope is that one of our inevitable blunders in genetic manipulation wipes out humankind. My respect for irony makes me fear we’ll wipe out everything else. Buy more guns today! mjh

Intricate Toiling Found In Nooks of DNA Once Believed to Stand Idle By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer

The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes and their role in human health and evolution, scientists reported yesterday.

The new perspective reveals DNA to be not just a string of biological code but a dauntingly complex operating system that processes many more kinds of information than previously appreciated.

The findings, from a project involving hundreds of scientists in 11 countries and detailed in 29 papers being published today, confirm growing suspicions that the stretches of “junk DNA” flanking hardworking genes are not junk at all. But the study goes further, indicating for the first time that the vast majority of the 3 billion “letters” of the human genetic code are busily toiling at an array of previously invisible tasks. …

Complicating the picture, it turns out that genes and the DNA sequences that regulate their activity are often far apart along the six-foot-long strands of DNA intricately packaged inside each cell. How they communicate is still largely a mystery. …

“There’s a lot more going on than we thought,” said Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, the part of the National Institutes of Health that financed most of the $42 million project.

“It’s like trying to read and understand a very complicated Chinese novel,” said Eric Green, the institute’s scientific director. “The take-home message is, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is really complicated.’ “