Ancient DNA is turning human evolution into a crime scene reconstruction, and one of the prime suspects is a herpesvirus that ...

Researchers have reconstructed ancient herpesvirus genomes from Iron Age and medieval Europeans, revealing that HHV-6 has been infecting humans for at least 2,500 years. Some people inherited the ...

The human genome is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes, the biological blueprints that make humans … well, human. But it turns out that some of our DNA — about 8% — are the remnants of ancient viruses ...

Beneath the surface of the South China Sea, researchers have identified a vast sinkhole in the seafloor that functions as a ...

DNA that humans acquired from ancient viruses plays a key role in switching parts of our genetic code on and off, a new study has found. Nearly half of the human genome consists of segments called ...

Scientists reconstructed ancient genomes of human herpesvirus 6A and 6B from archaeological remains dating back over 2,500 ...

For more than three decades, Ötzi the Iceman has been a kind of time capsule for researchers—an Alpine body preserved so well that it keeps producing scientific “firsts.” Now, a new analysis suggests ...

For the most part, these ancient viruses are inactive and are not a cause of concern, but in recent years, research has shown that some of the transposable elements may play important roles in human ...