Scientists discover gene regulation mechanism unique to primates

In the chapter THE RIDDLE VOF THE 1.6% in my book NOT A CHIMP I detail the important discovery that the regulation of protein production by a gene - called gene expression - was a more important factor in divergence of chimps from humans than changes to the actual DNA sequence of the genes. Here two researchers have documented how widespread and unique among the primates is a form of gene regulation that depends on a combination of small transposable junk elements of DNA in all our genomes - Alu elements - and a form of messenger RNA. It will be interesting if further research demonstrates different patterns of this form of gene expression regulation between primate species, and also interesting if they find out that a failure in this form of regulation could lead to forms of undisciplined cell behaviour like cancer.