The New York Times: The Coronavirus Is A Master Of Mixing Its Genome, Worrying Scientists

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Is A Master Of Mixing Its Genome, Worrying Scientists
In recent weeks, scientists have sounded the alarm about new variants of the coronavirus that carry a handful of tiny mutations, some of which seem to make vaccines less effective. But it is not just these small genetic changes that are raising concerns. The novel coronavirus has a propensity to mix large chunks of its genome when it makes copies of itself. Unlike small mutations, which are like typos in the sequence, a phenomenon called recombination resembles a major copy-and-paste error in which the second half of a sentence is completely overwritten with a slightly different version. (Khamsi, 2/5)