This is a good summary of what was going on. I kept reading the paper hoping for a cool wrinkle or function to be revealed, but it's just conserved, highly transcribed array sitting next to reverse transcriptases with a few possible partner genes.

A side note, Matt Durrant has hit on some pretty exciting recombinase activity previously (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07552-4). If there's anyone who's well equipped to track down if ART is doing something cool, he's top of the list.