DNA can be crazy sometimes. Some of them have an uncanny knack for jumping about, and are called 'jumping genes' for this unique ability. But as it turns out, it seems that these jumping DNAs play a vital role in shaping new species. Some pieces of DNA can copy themselves and leap into new locations on chromosomes, but in mammals, it was thought that most of these jumping wonders are so ancient and mutated that they are no longer mobile. Now Haig Kazazian and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA, say the common house mouse has some 3,000 active mobile elements. By comparing mouse species, they found the number of the 'retrotransposons', the technical name for these jumpers, have multiplied even within the last 100 years. "They are still going like gangbusters," says Kazazian. The jumping genes may have created the genetic differences that led to new species of mice and other animals.
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