Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

8% of Your DNA Comes From a Virus

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-not-you-peronally dept.

An anonymous reader writes "About 8 percent of human genetic material comes from a virus and not from our ancestors, according to an article by University of Texas at Arlington biology professor Cédric Feschotte, published in the Jan. 7, 2010 issue of Nature magazine."

6 of 478 comments (clear)

  1. Like my PC by Krneki · · Score: 5, Funny

    8% of my Windows code comes from Viruses.

    --
    Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  2. Revelation by schmidt349 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here, Mr. Malda. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague and we are the cure.

  3. Re:Ob. Matrix quote by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Funny

    The moral of the story is, cannibalism really does allow you to take your enemies strength. That's why we eat Jesus' flesh on Sundays, so we can absorb his holy virus and become like God.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  4. Re:Ob. Matrix quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's why I eat copious amounts of pasta, so that I, too, may be touched by His Noodly Appendage.

  5. Re:Ob. Matrix quote by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Commit yourself daily to serving The Lord

    With some fava beans and a nice Chianti, fthfthfthfth.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  6. Re:Mammals by canajin56 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "That's the way God wanted it" isn't the only way to support the observation of genes existing in multiple species, in a way that seems to imply inheritance. How about "God made life using OO programming"? Why would he start from scratch for every species, instead of just using copy & paste? If you really think about it...hacked together in 6 days, spaghetti code where 80% seems to be junk that doesn't even do anything, and is incredibly hard to decipher...God made us in PERL! Perl supports multiple inheritance, which explains the appearance of "viruses" transplanting genes from one species to another, unrelated species!

    --
    ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI