Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Notes on Nomenclature xi
5. An Introduction to Genomic Dark Matter 1
6. 1. Why Dark Matter Matters 7
7. 2. When Dark Matter Turns Very Dark Indeed 13
8. 3. Where Did All the Genes Go? 25
9. 4. Outstaying an Invitation 37
10. 5. Everything Shrinks When We Get Old 47
11. 6. Two Is the Perfect Number 63
12. 7. Painting with Junk 79
13. 8. Playing the Long Game 97
14. 9. Adding Colour to the Dark Matter 113
15. 10. Why Parents Love Junk 125
16. 11. Junk with a Mission 145
17. 12. Switching It On, Turning It Up 157
18. 13. No Man’s Land 175
19. 14. Project ENCODE – Big Science Comes to Junk DNA 185
20. 15. Headless Queens, Strange Cats and Portly Mice 201
21. 16. Lost in Untranslation 219
22. 17. Why LEGO is Better Than Airfix 237
23. 18. Mini Can Be Mighty 255
24. 19. The Drugs Do Work (Sometimes) 271
25. 20. Some Light in the Darkness 283
26. Notes 289
27. Appendix: Human Diseases Cited in the Main Text, in Which Junk DNA Has Been Implicated 329
28. Index 333