{"id":42923,"date":"2026-01-28T04:47:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=42923"},"modified":"2026-01-28T04:47:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:47:33","slug":"spotting-viral-invaders-in-koala-family-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=42923","title":{"rendered":"Spotting viral invaders in koala family trees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Habitat loss is not the only threat faced by koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus; pictured). Around half of captive koalas die from cancers associated with retroviruses \u2014 viral invaders that insert their DNA into the host\u2019s genome. When such foreign DNA becomes integrated into reproductive cells, it is passed to future generations. Although this evolutionary process occurred millions of years ago in humans, evidence suggests it is ongoing in koalas, leaving them susceptible to diseases caused by disruptions in gene activity.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"c-article-competing-interests__title\">Competing Interests<\/h2>\n<p>The author declares no competing interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Habitat loss is not the only threat faced by koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus; pictured). Around half of captive koalas die from cancers associated with retroviruses \u2014 viral invaders that insert their DNA into the host\u2019s genome. When such foreign DNA becomes integrated into reproductive cells, it is passed to future generations. Although this evolutionary process occurred<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2906,22534,119,22533,724,4982],"class_list":{"0":"post-42923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-family","9":"tag-invaders","10":"tag-koala","11":"tag-spotting","12":"tag-trees","13":"tag-viral"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}