Transposable elements in bacteria are short segments of DNA—composed of hundreds to thousands of nucleotides that behave like small fairytale elfins who are always willing to relocate. Those small elements, having evolved for billions of years, are so successful that they occupy an extremely large proportion of genomes of living organisms, for example up to 50% of the human genome.
In his recent book, Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, James Shapiro, a well-known expert of transposable elements at the University of Chicago, not only shares stories about transposable elements, but also tells readers about how his new evolutionary theory explains different molecular processes in cells and living organisms.