What’s New About How Plants Work? – Some “Tasty Tidbits” from 2013 (Eighth Course)

“Transposons are DNA elements that can multiply and change their location within an organism’s genome. Discovered in the 1940s, for years they were thought to be unimportant and were called “junk DNA.” Also referred to as transposable elements and jumping genes, they are snippets of “selfish DNA” that spread in their host genomes serving no other biological purpose but their own existence.” Geneticists at the University of California, Riverside, challenged that understanding last year: Researchers discover beneficial jumping gene.