Frankly, I find this a little disturbing: Eight percent of the human genome comes from the insertion of genetic material from a virus. A kind of RNA virus called a bornavirus has the ability to replicate in the nuclei of cells, causing its DNA to be incorporated into the DNA of the cells of the host organism, and thus passed along from generation to generation, eventually evolving into part of the “normal” genome. The researchers who have been studying this think that the resulting genetic mutations might be at the core of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and Republicanism.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
are you saying that we’re mostly mutations? Maybe I ought to read that link you provided….
No, what the article says is that as much as 8% of the DNA in the human genome did not originate within humans, it was spliced into our DNA by viruses. The scientists think that this sometimes causes mutations that manifest themselves in a variety of disorders, schizophrenia in particular.
So…eventually we’ll be all mtuants? Is that where the X-men came from?
No, we’ll all be schizophrenic…but, on the plus side, no one will ever be lonely again.