The jelly was topped with a most beautiful selection of wild herbs and small flowers, all edible.

FORBES: Rafael Trapet / Getty Images

Dr Nuzhdin thinks that the main reason why copia does not proliferate like this in wild populations is that natural selection keeps these transposable elements in check.

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This creates a selection pressure which drives the genes through the population, as the offspring of wild flies die more often than those of engineered or hybrid flies.

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