A new study suggests that DNA synthesized in the cell cytoplasm drives retinal cell death in an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness.

A transposable element that jumped into the TBXT gene, which is linked to tail morphology, appears to be to blame for our missing appendage.

As male Drosophila grow old, selfish genetic elements that are abundant on the Y chromosome become more active, which appears to reduce longevity.

A tool for identifying jumping gene insertions in DNA sequencing data turns up possible explanations for four patients’ rare developmental disorders.

Researchers repurpose the CRISPR machinery to turn whole classes of transposable elements on or off.

The study could pave the way for transplanting porcine organs to humans without the risk of reigniting endogenous retroviruses.

Plants have so much to teach us.

An anti-transposon pathway previously thought to function only in reproductive tissue also helps reduce harmful mutations in body cells of fruit flies.

A transposon underlies this classic story of evolutionary adaptation.

Panoramix, a newly identified transcription repressor, takes the bounce out of jumping genes.

These mobile genetic elements can wreak havoc on the genome. Researchers are now trying to understand how such activity contributes to the aging process.

A mass migration of mobile regulatory elements increased the expression of thousands of genes in the uterus during the evolution of pregnancy.

In the evolutionary arms race between pathogens and hosts, genetic elements known as transposons are regularly recruited as assault weapons for cellular defense.

Meet some of the people featured in the January 2015 issue of The Scientist.

Regulation of genome expression orchestrates the behavior of insect castes and the human response to social stress.

Different mechanisms repress mobile DNA elements in human embryonic stem cells depending on the elements’ evolutionary ages.

Researchers uncover a group of mobile genetic elements in bacteria and archaea encoding a Cas enzyme.

Researchers find evidence that transposable elements, also known as jumping genes, may contribute to the development of the psychiatric disorder.

The cell detains potentially harmful RNA messages in the spliceosome long enough to create interfering RNAs against the aberrant messages.