On average, 61.9 percent of the Italian sparrow's DNA comes from house sparrows and 38.1 percent from Spanish sparrows, the researchers reported June 14 in Science Advances. (sciencenews.org)
ABOUT THAT LIGHT Another reason for caution in lighting up the night comes from a study of house sparrow difficulties in fighting off West Nile virus, which mosquitoes biting the birds can then spread to people. (sciencenews.org)
In some parts of the Italian sparrow's genome, house sparrow genes have been purged, leaving only Spanish sparrow DNA. (sciencenews.org)