Is this in reference to the book called The Selfish Gene?
this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
38 points (93.2% liked)
science
18939 readers
104 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yes. The paper is about ~~transpose or~~ transposable elements which also featured in the Dawkins tome.
As usual, the university press office distorts and over extrapolates what the paper actually accomplished.
Still cool though. This work traces back the types of transposons responsible for creating introns and identifies at least 8 (?) cases of horizontal transfer.
The medical implications are nought. We already know about the presence of introns and how variants in introns can sometimes cause disease by misdirecting splicing.