Viral Fossil Brought Back to Life. Wow, what a neat piece of science. More than neat or clever, ingenious, even brilliant.

Now I'm no expert, but an RNA molecule is a highly structured organic molecule. To have different known varieties--of say, a rhinovirus (common cold) or HIV, that function for the most part within the cells of a specific type host (human, chicken, dog etc.), or even within a specific type of cell within a specific type of host--is quite remarkable.

Or rather, it is remarkable that such a virus as the Phoenix virus could be inert organic material (for all intents and purposes) and yet find itself "extinct." Evolution on the part of humans apparently caused the virus to go extinct. Implying then that viruses are at the mercy of evolution.

I wonder what use a divine creator would have had for including an extinct virus's RNA in our DNA... It is amazing to me what can be accomplished by simply allowing time to take its course with respect to biology. No divine intervention or creation needed to create complex interactions (like DNA and RNA replication or prions etc.), just a large enough quantity of various basic organic chemicals. Mashed together for long enough, and poof, here I am typing this, with all my bits of foreign RNA. Neat.