Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

  • Around 45 percent of human DNA is made up of transposable elements, or TEs—genetic leftovers from now-extinct viruses that scientists once believed to be “junk DNA.”
  • But that view is changing, and a new study—which grouped TEs based on evolutionary relationships and level of conservation—found that one family of sequences known as MER11 plays a role in gene expression.
  • Nearly 80 years after their initial discovery, scientists are still finding new things about how TEs play a vital role in primate evolution.

Ever since Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher first isolated DNA back in 1869, science has been on an incredible path of genomic discovery. One of the major moments in the journey occurred in the 1940s, when cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock discovered transposable elements (TE), also known as “jumping genes.” Decades later, The Human Genome Project found that these elements made up a staggering 45 percent of the human genome, and managed to proliferate over millions of years thanks to a “copy-and-paste” mechanism./.../