I agree with everything you say here. I just want to point out that there is the opportunity for confusion based on the explanation provided that is fairly insi

I agree with everything you say here. I just want to point out that there is the opportunity for confusion based on the explanation provided that is fairly insignificant, but present nonetheless. Namely, the author characterizes the relationship between the two as competitive, or predator-prey. In other words, the two entities described herein (the bacterial and human genomes) are competing just to maintain the same relationship with one another. While this is an accurate description, the actual Carroll story is characteristic of a cooperative relationship; Alice and the Queen are holding hands and running, only to stay in the same place. I realize this is a very minor gripe, and the author of this article is in fact misstating the story in a way that is really truer to the Red Queen hypothesis than it is to the story after which that hypothesis is named. While perhaps not the most interesting discussion point of this article, I do think it was an interesting enough distinction that it was worth pointing out.