For decades, scientists dismissed transposable elements, also known as transposons or “jumping genes”, as useless “junk DNA”. But are they really? The early speculations of both McClintock ...

Transposable elements, or "jumping genes", were first identified by Barbara McClintock more than 50 years ago. Why are transposons so common in eukaryotes, and exactly what do they do? In addition ...

Emerging findings suggest that viral DNA may play an important part in how embryos form, right after fertilization.

Study uncovers how transposable elements in Alzheimer's-affected brains could hold the key to new therapeutic approaches, as ...

Among other things, this regulation allows cells within the body to take on different roles and keeps transposable elements (TEs) from excessively jumping around and wreaking genomic havoc—in most ...

Over half of our genomes consists of thousands of remnants of ancient viral DNA, known as transposable elements, which are widespread across the tree of life. Once dismissed as the "dark side" of ...

DNA from ancient viruses that form a part of the human genome may be contributing in the early development of an embryo in ...