It’s long been known that DNA from so-called retroviruses make up around five per cent of our genetic makeup. But for years, this was dubbed junk DNA with no real use, and was considered to be a ...

Nearly half of our DNA has been written off as junk, the discards of evolution: sidelined or broken genes, viruses that got stuck in our genome and were dismembered or silenced, none of it relevant to ...

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 lexicon of science is riddled with catchy yet misleading terms. The “god particle” is nothing of the sort. Genes cannot really be “selfish”, and when astronomers talk about “metals”, they usually ...

We only use eight per cent of our DNA, scientists say. An Oxford University study has concluded that just 8.2 per cent of our DNA is likely to be doing something important. The rest is junk DNA – an ...

A collection of mystery DNA segments, which seem to be critical for the survival of many animals, are causing great interest among scientists. Researchers inspecting the genetic code of rats, mice and ...

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 ...

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 ...

ENCODE has identified 400 regions of ‘junk’ or non-coding DNA that may have a bearing on disease states, and the implications for pharma and patients are huge The announcement in September that hefty ...

The growth of certain cancers may be triggered by junk DNA, say scientists. They have found that it can cause the spread of Hodgkin's lymphoma, a blood disorder, and they believe the same may be true ...