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We don’t make this up: Our bodies fight off “jumping genes”

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From ScienceDaily:

There’s a civil war going on inside every one of the 37 trillion cells in your body. Now, scientists have uncovered how your cells keep this war from causing too much collateral damage. On one side of the battle: your “regular” DNA, which provides the day-to-day instructions for life. On the other side: tiny bits of rogue DNA that hide like spies between genes in your own DNA. From time to time, these rogue bits of DNA spin off a copy of themselves and “jump” to another DNA location – often causing harmful mutations when they land.

Well, this is Dawkins’ “selfish gene” with a vengeance.

It seeks only to replicate itself. If you die, that doesn’t matter, as long as it has replicated itself a bunch of times in your system.

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Comments
From fairy tales to spy stories! Who says that darwinism does not evolve?gpuccio
April 27, 2014
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Also from the article
This kind of intracellular "immunity" may have been raging since the beginnings of life on earth, Moran speculates. LINE-1 contains the code for a molecule called reverse transcriptase -- the kind of molecule that would have been crucial when higher life forms started to evolve and use DNA instead of the less stable RNA to carry genetic information.
Science!Jehu
April 26, 2014
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Yes! We're all sinner because of our genetics! No wonder the atheists blame God. Not sure how they reconcile that with their lack of belief in God, but hey...Mung
April 26, 2014
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I have seen some claim, with some plausibility, that LINE elements may have something to do with original sin.Paul Giem
April 26, 2014
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