01.08.10
Your mom (dad, and you) is descended from a virus
Found this article on wired.com titled Human Genome Is Part Bornavirus.
“Our whole notion of ourselves as a species is slightly misconceived,” says Robert Gifford, a paleovirologist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York City. Human DNA includes genetic contributions from bacteria and other organisms, and humans have even come to rely on some of these genes for basic functions like fighting infections.
In the new study, Japanese researchers found copies of the bornavirus N (for nucleoprotein) gene inserted in at least four separate locations in the human genome. Searches of other mammalian genomes also showed that the gene has hitched rides in a wide variety of species for millions of years.
“Clearly they provide a fossil record of bornavirus that was previously only available for retroviruses,” says John Coffin, a virologist at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston who coauthored the study. “It tells us that virus evolution doesn’t proceed the way many people have viewed it.”