In 2007, an international
team of biologists looked at all the genes of a simple green alga called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, or Chlamy for short.
Not exact matches
But when a
team of evolutionary
biologists took a closer
look at the brittlestar's skeleton, they realized that the tiny crystal structures probably had nothing to do with vision.
Earlier studies
looked at many genes from a few animals or a few genes from many animals, but Brown University
biologist Casey Dunn and his
team cast a wider net, sampling DNA from all across the genomes
of 71 different animals.
Led by Craig Packer
of the University
of Minnesota, Twin Cities, a
team of biologists took a closer
look at the diminishing lion populations in Tanzania over the last decade.
The
team, led by molecular
biologist Peter Underhill
of Stanford University,
looked at 167 mutations in 1062 men from 21 geographical regions.
Looking for other natural tactics, a
team led by structural
biologist Michael James
of the University
of Alberta examined Ascaris suum, a worm that infects pigs.