A study led by researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm shows that the last remaining populations of the Sumatran rhinoceros display surprisingly low levels of inbreeding. The researchers sequenced the genomes ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 26, 2021
0
62
When humans first domesticated maize some 9,000 years ago, those early breeding efforts led to an increase in harmful mutations to the crop's genome compared to their wild relatives, which more recent modern breeding has ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 21, 2021
0
50
Scientists from Queen Mary University of London have found that harmful mutations accumulating in the fire ant social chromosome are causing its breakdown.
Plants & Animals
Aug 25, 2020
0
135
Long-lived mushrooms that grow in 'fairy rings' accumulate surprisingly few mutations over time. This finding indicates that their protection against harmful mutations is well developed. The results, to be published in the ...
Evolution
Aug 8, 2019
0
87
Cancer first develops as a single cell going rogue, with mutations that trigger aggressive growth at all costs to the health of the organism. But if cancer cells were accumulating harmful mutations faster than they could ...
Evolution
Jan 15, 2019
2
255
The critically endangered Grauer's gorilla has recently lost genetic diversity and has experienced an increase in harmful mutations. These conclusions were reached by an international team of researchers who sequenced eleven ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 27, 2018
0
139
Not too long ago, biologists would induce mutations in an entire genome, isolate an organism that displayed a resulting disease or abnormality that they wanted to study, and then work backward to determine which gene was ...
Biotechnology
Nov 27, 2017
0
3
We've all heard Darwin's theory described as favoring the fittest, but new research from Michigan State University shows that, at least in small populations, it's O.K. to not be the best.
Evolution
Oct 18, 2017
1
126
An evolutionary biologist at the University of Houston has published new calculations that indicate no more than 25 percent of the human genome is functional. That is in stark contrast to suggestions by scientists with the ...
Biotechnology
Jul 14, 2017
8
80
For breeders of cassava, a staple food for hundreds of millions in the tropics, producing improved varieties has been getting harder over time. A team at Cornell used genomic analysis of cassava varieties and wild relatives ...
Biotechnology
Apr 28, 2017
6
685
