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Geneticists have turned up intriguing links between DNA and the disease. Patients with Type A blood, for example, seem to be at greater risk.

At the start of this decade, the federal government identified consumer DNA testing as a burgeoning scam industry. Nonetheless, according to MIT Technology Review more than 26 million people have had their DNA tested. The scam is mainstream now.

For nearly a decade, researchers have puzzled over what the Denisovans looked like. Now, we have our best model yet of the species' skeleton.

Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics kill 700,000 people a year worldwide. If we don’t find new treatments, the annual death toll could rise to 10 million by 2050.

Early embryos may have come to depend on the tricks viruses use to manipulate them.

With advances in genome sequencing and computational tools to analyze genomic information, researchers are able to estimate that about 8 percent of the human genome is made of sequences that originated as invasive retroviruses. To put that number in perspective, genes make up about 1 percent to 1.5 percent of your genome.

DNA from old skeletons suggests a complex history of new DNA being introduced.

What's in a minimal cell? This is very close to the basic requirements of life as we know it. For a full 17 percent of the genes we have no clear idea of what they do.

When ancient retroviruses infected our ancestors, they occasionally infiltrated a human sperm or egg cell. If those cells went on to fertilize an embryo, any viral genes incorporated into them had a ticket to ride from one generation to the next. Evidence suggests that during human evolution we've co-opted leftover genetic material from some of these "fossil viruses" to turn the tables and help our immune system fight diseases.