this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Science

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The furry puss caterpillar's venom packs a painful punch. Now new research shows it came from an unlikely source (theconversation.com)
submitted 1 year ago by Peaces@infosec.pub to c/science@beehaw.org
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305871120

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[โ€“] Yazer@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's really cool. I've never heard of horizontal genre transfer before. I'm curious how common it is

[โ€“] Infrapink@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's usually mediated by viruses. A virus infects an organism, picks up some host genetic material, and later jumps to a different host. At some point, the viral DNA is incorporated into the host genome and stays there, bringing the DNA from the previous host with it. This is how mammals got placentas. About 8% of the human genome is made of viruses that got stuck there

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