The protists are an extremely interesting group of organisms. RNA editing was first discovered in trypanosomes, and subsequently found in other organisms, including mammals. The use of an RNA template from another chromosome is, so far, unique to the trypanosome.
The article implies that more than the "template" thing is unique. In fact, they make it sound like it came from another planet, except for this:
"The process is closer to what we observe in bacterial transcription"
What about bacterial transcription is similar to the trypanosome?