Friday, February 17, 2006

Fascinating article on biology

If the folks who've discovered the mimivirus are correct, virii aren't just predators of life, but in fact are the agents and building blocks of everything we call life. This would mean that most of our "junk" DNA are actually harmless viruses! Elegant -- absolutely elegant!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is reminiscent of the thesis upon which Greg Bear's _Darwin's Radio_ is based. Bear goes one step further to suggest that endothemic retroviruses may be the engine of speciation and therefore macroevolution.

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