“Genetic endemism” is northern Eurasian cattle.
Genome of cereal disease fungus sequenced
Fusarium head blight fungus genome decoded.
Vitis genome
Uncommon Ground ably unpacks Nature paper on grapevine genome.
DNA barcoding takes off
DNA barcoding is based on a gamble (or maybe a shrewd guess), and perhaps a smidgin of circular thinking: that there is a chunk of genome short enough to sequence quickly and cheaply, and which shows just enough variability for the entire sequence to be the same for all members of a species, but different for different species. Well, the gamble seems to have paid off. A suitable bit of a gene has duly been identified for both animals and plants, data are being ammassed, and there’s talk of a portable gadget being available in a few years which will read off the relevant sequence from a bit of leaf or skin or something and compare it with a database to give you the species name right there in the field.
More “contaminated” bison
The ancestors of the bison, or buffaloes, of Catalina Island off the California coast arrived as movie extras in 1924. Scientists have always thought they were more likely to be pure-bred than many of the other buffalo that roam North America, because they’ve effectively been in isolation. Turns out it ain’t so. Nearly half the animals shipped off the island have maternal cow genes. Scientists believe the cross breeding probably occurred before the buffalo were shipped to Catalina — and nothing since 1924 has selected against it.
P.S. As the commenter to our original piece pointed out, nobody seems to have looked for bison genes in cattle. Why not?