Absolutely, there are 2,500 genes that we didn't know about.
Now it could be that if any one of these genes shows up in any of the "known" lineages (as it might if a retro-virus carrying it injected it) that it causes the host to die before reproducing. It could be that they are pandemics waiting to happen, it could be that they are code for additional eyeballs.
The challenge is that we do not yet (as far as I can ascertain) have a way to looking at a gene and identifying all of the effects that gene has on a cell or an organism. What we have are organisms with genes, that we are 'debugging by printf' by essentially commenting them out and seeing what happens.
Once our knowledge base flips, and we understand genetics at a information/programmatic level, we would be able to evaluate these 2500 genes and see if there is anything useful here.
That is actually very interesting. How well would our (in)ability to parse what code (SW) does without actually running it transcend to genes. STA for genes?
Now it could be that if any one of these genes shows up in any of the "known" lineages (as it might if a retro-virus carrying it injected it) that it causes the host to die before reproducing. It could be that they are pandemics waiting to happen, it could be that they are code for additional eyeballs.
The challenge is that we do not yet (as far as I can ascertain) have a way to looking at a gene and identifying all of the effects that gene has on a cell or an organism. What we have are organisms with genes, that we are 'debugging by printf' by essentially commenting them out and seeing what happens.
Once our knowledge base flips, and we understand genetics at a information/programmatic level, we would be able to evaluate these 2500 genes and see if there is anything useful here.