Scientists from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences in Japan in collaboration with other researchers from around the world have discovered that recombinations of specific genomic sequences that are repeated millions of times in the genome of each of our cells are pervasively found in both normal and in disease states. Identifying the mechanisms that lead to this myriad of recombinations involving DNA sequences that were once considered as "junk" may be crucial to understanding how our cells develop and what can make them unhealthy.