Human Cells a Chimera of Ancient Life
23rd February 2013
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Our cells remain chimeras, a hybrid fusion of unrelated creatures.
The genes date from an event 1.5 billion years ago, when two kinds of simple cells, neither having a nucleus or cellular membrane, shacked up and created an entirely new form of life: eukaryotes.
While the two distinct communities of genes work together to keep cell machinery ticking, they otherwise stay out of each other’s hair, report biologists from the National University of Ireland.