Adverse genetic mutations can cause harm and are due to various circumstances. 'Jumping genes' are one cause of mutations, but cells try and combat them with a specialized RNA called piRNA.

Back in 2008, neurovirologist Renée Douville observed something weird in the brains of people who’d died of the movement disorder ALS: virus proteins. But these people hadn’t caught any known virus.

Polar bears are rapidly undergoing “fundamental genetic changes” in a desperate attempt to adapt to the climate crisis. Human-caused climate change is warming the Arctic at an accelerated rate, two to ...

The genome of a typical organism consists of many genes that are stringed like beads. This alignment has been surprisingly stable even over very long evolutionary periods. In addition to these genes, ...

DNA that humans acquired from ancient viruses plays a key role in switching parts of our genetic code on and off, a new study has found. Nearly half of the human genome consists of segments called ...

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have revealed previously unappreciated roles for the retrotransposon LINE-1 in shaping the cancer genome structure and regulation. Retrotransposons ...

Research performed in the Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering (CBSE) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that mobile repetitive elements–also known as transposons or ...