[HN Gopher] Selfish, Virus-Like DNA Can Carry Genes Between Species
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Selfish, Virus-Like DNA Can Carry Genes Between Species
Author : pseudolus
Score : 36 points
Date : 2023-08-06 15:43 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| frognumber wrote:
| Mechanisms like this are why I hate evolution as taught in K-12.
| The basic model (random mutations + selection of the fittest +
| sexual intermixing) is not just oversimplified, but
| oversimplified to the point of being wrong on many levels.
|
| (It's not just the way DNA can jump between species; there's are
| many other mechanisms, such as evidence of rates of mutation
| changing during major changes like ice ages, dynamics of sexual
| partner selection, etc.).
|
| Combined, those have deep implications, but outside of the scope
| of a HN post.
| zapdrive wrote:
| Most of the school education is simplified to a level. The
| higher the level the more complicated/detailed it gets.
| smusamashah wrote:
| I learned relatively recently what survival of the fittest
| actually means. That the mutation which was capable enough to
| adapt to the environment survived. Before, I use to think that
| species deliberately created better offsprings for new
| environments.
|
| We are result of random mutations. Couldn't find what it was
| like before random mutations or how life started creating it's
| clones.
| adrian_b wrote:
| The free version of the research paper:
|
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.12.499685v1
| personjerry wrote:
| What's the difference between these mavericks and prions?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Prions are proteins, not DNA. (There's probably other
| differences too...)
| otherme123 wrote:
| Mavericks are well known transposons
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polinton), and as other
| transposons suspected since long ago to jump between species:
| things like fragments of DNA in specie A very similar to specie
| B embedded in a transposon sequence, while specie A and B
| diverged long ago. The novelty of this paper is the authors
| actually found the transposons jumping and carrying info
| between species.
| whiddershins wrote:
| If it can happen between species it must be able to happen
| between individuals of a species which means who I associate with
| can affect my DNA?
| bionhoward wrote:
| One idea, the cells of your body probably communicate with
| little DNA packets called exosomes and "we" as in humanity writ
| large have yet to pick up on the importance of this cellular
| internet (oops?)
|
| Or not. Maybe the cells don't send exosomes of dna to each
| other. That seems like a missed opportunity in a world of
| words!
| otherme123 wrote:
| Do you have oral herpes? The virus inserts their sequence in
| your DNA, where it remains dormant. When it awakes, if you
| spread it to some other person, its sequence is also inserted
| in their DNA.
|
| The event shown in this paper is the same but infecting
| germinal cells, and getting passed to the next generations
| (i.e. it doesn't cause damage). Sometimes it could carry
| foreign (to the virus-like) DNA.
| [deleted]
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