Almost every nook and cranny of living cells investigated by scientists has yielded a new level of unforeseen and complicated organization. For example, before it was discovered, who would have suspected that DNA contains volumes of coded language with all the essential features of human language?¹

Scientists believed and taught for ages that only gene-coding DNA (which is a small fraction of DNA in human and other genomes) was functional. All other DNA was "junk" leftovers from a long evolutionary past. But recent studies have shown that non-coding DNA actually carries useful and vital coded instructions.¹

In the tiny world of the cell, segments of DNA called transposons copy and reinsert themselves into the DNA. They eventually produce large repetitive sequences that have for many years been considered useless "junk" or remnants of ancient viral infections. But a new study has uncovered an important function for transposons.

Genes are portions of DNA that contain just the right codes to specify proteins, which make everything in cells work. But how does the cell know which protein should be manufactured, how often, how much, or how fast? If it doesn't get these right, then cellular disaster results.

A hundred and fifty years ago, most biologists believed that cells were "simple" blobs of protoplasm. This made Darwinian evolution easier to accept, since all nature would have to do to make a new creature is accidentally adjust a collection of rudimentary parts from an old one.