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Over the course of human evolution, we’ve been exposed to so many that about 8 percent of the human genome is made up of retroviral DNA sequences that have inserted themselves into the human germ line, often to our benefit.

But for years, the consensus was that no scientist would go so far as to edit a gene in the germ line — human sperm, eggs or embryos — given both the possible dangers to any resulting child, and the unresolved ethical issues involved in making heritable changes.

GRC, in contrast, is “an obligatory element in the germ line of song birds,” Larkin says.

Nielsen hopes that his team’s error does not dissuade others from using databases such as the UK Biobank to understand the effects of editing the human germ line, the DNA that can be passed on to future generations.

The survivors made it into the germ line, so the within-lifetime innovations were passed on to subsequent flowers and pollen.