Virus - Role in Evolution

Role in Evolution

Viruses are an important natural means of transferring genes between different species, which increases genetic diversity and drives evolution. It is thought that viruses played a central role in the early evolution, before the diversification of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes and at the time of the last universal common ancestor of life on Earth. Viruses are still one of the largest reservoirs of unexplored genetic diversity on Earth.

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Famous quotes containing the words role in, role and/or evolution:

    If women’s role in life is limited solely to housewife/mother, it clearly ends when she can no longer bear more children and the children she has borne leave home.
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    To win by strategy is no less the role of a general than to win by arms.
    Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.)

    Like Freud, Jung believes that the human mind contains archaic remnants, residues of the long history and evolution of mankind. In the unconscious, primordial “universally human images” lie dormant. Those primordial images are the most ancient, universal and “deep” thoughts of mankind. Since they embody feelings as much as thought, they are properly “thought feelings.” Where Freud postulates a mass psyche, Jung postulates a collective psyche.
    Patrick Mullahy (b. 1912)