DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
The human genome has 3 billion letters but only 1% (exons) correspond to some 21.000 genes that encode about 90.000 proteins. This economy is accomplished through a smart process known as alternative splicing.
The remaining 99% (introns) was once thought to be evolutive trash but in recent years it has been found that correspond mainly to promoting and regulating regions of the previous genes. Genes are important but it looks like their regulation is even much more. Still, a good part of introns has no known function.
There were some ancient viruses that used to infect humans but today, 8% of human DNA is actually made of those ancient viruses
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