The human genome is full of viruses
I've always thought of DNA as mere "data". "This goes here, that goes there", etc. And I've always wondered how such a relatively small amount of data could describe the massive complexity of a full-size organism.<p>But this makes it sound like DNA is data the way Lisp is data: it can contain procedures and transformations and meta-statements about itself, and even mutate during the course of being interpreted. That would explain so much.<p>The use of the term "virus" in software seems to be more apt than I'd thought.