Will these bacteria take over the world? As if we didn't have enough with plastic and chemical and nuclear waste, now these idiot scientists are creating some unkillable form of garbage that replicates itself.
No. Bacteria need to adapt to changing environments, for example the adaptive immune systems of their hosts or the emergence of competing life forms. Viruses accelerate adaption because they transfer genes from successful individuals to others. Viruses are therefore not just parasites, but are symbiotic with their hosts. Bacteria that cannot utilize viruses will sooner or later be overwhelmed by other bacteria.
Very true, viruses (especially retroviruses) are known to insert code from previous hosts into a host's genome. Human DNA itself contains many ERV's, or Endogenous RetroViruses. And some of those ERV's contain snippets of code from previous hosts, most of which are probably now extinct.
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