Imagine the human genome as a string stretching out for the length of a football field, with all the genes that encode proteins clustered at the end near your feet. Take two big steps forward; all the ...

It has been claimed that because most of our DNA is active, it must be important, but now human-plant hybrid cells have been ...

Ancient viruses left a legacy in your DNA. And it turns out, that legacy may be helping shape who you are. A recent international study has shown that certain bits of ancient viral DNA, long dismissed ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Some millions of years ago, a far distant ancestor of all animals encountered a virus that inserted its own genetic material into the creature. Over the course of animal evolution, these bits of viral ...

A new model offers a possible solution to the scientific question of why neutral sequences, sometimes referred to as 'junk DNA', are not eliminated from the genome of living creatures in nature and ...

A new international study suggests that ancient viral DNA embedded in our genome, which were long dismissed as genetic “junk”, may actually play powerful roles in regulating gene expression. A new ...

Recent scientific breakthroughs have transformed the once-dismissed non-coding DNA, or “junk DNA,” into a targeted weapon against cancer. Leveraging artificial intelligence, scientists have uncovered ...

Not only can transposable elements be useful, but new evidence shows they may have been powerfully linked to primate evolution. Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X (opens in a new ...

The Y chromosome, that little chain of genes that determines the sex of humans, is not as tough as you might think. In fact, if we look at the Y chromosome over the course of our evolution we've seen ...