There are many fascinating relics and bizarre ancient remnants in human DNA. Endogenous Viral Elements are a great example of this. Referred to as “horizontal e

There are many fascinating relics and bizarre ancient remnants in human DNA. Endogenous Viral Elements are a great example of this. Referred to as “horizontal evolution”, there are a variety of organisms that have the ability to literally transfer their DNA to other species. Something like 5-8% of the Human Genome is the result of “injections” from these paleoviruses. Part of that percentage is junk / redundant DNA strands humans evolved over time to make it more difficult for viruses to navigate and compromise our DNA.