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You are part-virus
Click to zoom One of the bigger surprises unearthed by the Human Genome Project was exactly how much of our DNA has been contributed by viruses.
Viruses can’t reproduce on their own – so some viruses have to insert their DNA into a host cell in order to be copied.
If the virus inserts itself into a sperm or egg cell, then the resulting offspring may carry the virus DNA in every one of its cells.
This has happened so often in human evolution that no less than 9% of our genome is directly derived from viruses.
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