Turns out we have a lot more to find out. This whole DNA/RNA thing was not wrapped up in the 1950s.
Two recent articles in the NY Times summarize some of the latest work on these two nucleic acids, and show that they are more impressive than we thought. RNA interference was discovered only about 10 years ago and has already earned two people a nobel prize. This work has opened up an entirely new world of RNA biology and promises to have large implications for basic biology and biomedicine.
After years of teaching students about junk DNA, the human genome project suggested that the large proportion of DNA that does not tell cells how to make proteins does have a function. In addition, it is now clear that proteins attached to our DNA not only affect how our genes are activated, but that these proteins and their effects may be inheritable. This definitely adjusts the basic dogma of DNA-RNA-protein, and what exactly constitutes our genetic material.
[...] findings extend, but do not refute, Darwin’s work from a century and a half ago. Even when new findings in epigenetic inheritance are redeeming Jean-Baptiste [...]