Your Body Acquires Trillions of New Mutations Every Day
And it’s somehow fine?
As you read this article, the cells in your body are dividing and the DNA in them is being copied, letter by letter. So long is the human genome—more than 3 billion letters—that even an astonishingly low error rate of one in many million letters could amount to 10 new mutations every time a cell divides.
Oh, perhaps you’re also catching some sun () while you read this, or enjoying a beer (), or have recently been). Congratulations, you’ve given yourself even more mutations. In a typical day, scientists estimate, the 37 trillion cells in your body will accumulate trillions of new mutations.
