On the Plus Side, They Don't Have to Use Those Tiny Fossil Brushes

Carl Zimmer has a feature article in the New York Times expanding on last week's Nature publication demonstrating that there are non-retroviral RNA viral elements in mammalian genomes. The article delves into the timeline of related discoveries, such as finding retroviral elements in the human genome during the Human Genome Project. Zimmer refers to scientists tracing these viral elements as "fossil virus hunters," noting that they are "taking advantage of the growing number of mammal genomes piling up in online databases and helping to flesh out the evolutionary history of viruses, reaching back tens of millions of years."