Ancient Viruses, Once Foes, May Now Serve as Friends - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Lottie Peppers on 26 Apr 15Our genomes are riddled with the detritus of ancient viruses. They infected our hominid ancestors tens of millions of years ago, inserting their genes into the DNA of their hosts. Today, we carry about 100,000 genetic remnants of this invasion. So-called endogenous retroviruses make up 8 percent of the human genome.