Mapping a clan of mobile selfish genes
Thursday, October 23, 2008 - 07:35
in Biology & Nature
Much of human DNA is the genetic equivalent of e-mail spam: short repeated sequences that have no obvious function other than making more of themselves. After starting out in our primate ancestors 65 million years ago, one type of repetitive DNA called an Alu retrotransposon now takes up 10 percent of our genome, with about one million copies...
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