by Carl Zimmer
Research that began with a study of replication enzymes used by bacteria has led to a controversial theory. Patrick Forterre, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, believes that viruses are at the very heart of evolution. Viruses, Forterre argues, bequeathed DNA to all living things. Trace the ancestry of your genes back far enough, in other words, and you bump into a virus.
Read the full story in Science 12 May 2006 [Vol. 312. no. 5775, pp. 870 - 872]
Read a 2004 story from Science on Forterre's earlier work
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