Ancient virus found hibernating in the human genome—and it might wake up

In DNA dig, scientists unearth more viral code, which makes up >8% of our genomes. In the current era of microbiome research, we humans are already having to come to grips with the fact that ‘I’ is actually ‘we’. Instead of our bodies constituting a single life-form, we are each composed of complex and diverse ecosystems of microbes that have a profound influence on our existence. Our health and wellbeing are not just determined by what our own cells do, but what our trillions of invisible inhabitants do, too. And the genetic blueprints that govern our biology are partly carried in those microbial inhabitants, as well as in our own cells. But, as it happens, the DNA in our own cells isn’t solely ours, either. More than eight percent of the human genome is not human at all—it’s from viruses. And scientists are still digging up yet more viral code from human...