Tuesday, September 02, 2008
DNA bar-coding hitches
The ambitious project to DNA barcode all species (International Barcode of Life) has run in to a bit of rough weather. Scientists use a portion of the gene found in an organism's mitochondria for bar-coding. A new study by Brigham Young University has shown that the current techniques can mistakenly record the "broken" copy of the gene found in the nucleus of the organism's cells. This lapse will make present bar-coding technique to call it another unique species by mistake. This could lead to overestimating the number of species. To overcome this hitch, Brigham Young University has recommended specific quality control procedures to ensure that correct genes are captured. The day is not far off when a handheld device like a supermarket scanner is used to identify species. All that needs to be done is to compare the DNA marker from an organism with the known encyclopedia of life and immediately come out the species' name. 400,000 species have already been bar-coded to date. Exciting times are ahead for field biology scientists.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hi,
I am Richa from SiliconIndia, I trust my email finds you in good health and high spirits. I am also an avid blogger and thought it’s a good time to initiate an interaction by updating you on some of the recent happenings at SiliconIndia.
• We are now a strong community of 1 Million professionals
• There are 10,000 active bloggers who participate in active blogging
We have leaders like Narayan Murthy, Azim Premji to fresh graduates who share their opinion & thoughts to contribute their knowledge and advice through blogging.
We would love to see you, embark on blogging here and sharing your perspectives to the rapidly growing SiliconIndia community and appreciate your community initiative here.
Please mail me back at richa@siliconindia.com with your suggestions and feedback.
Richa Sharma
Blog Editor – SiliconIndia
Dear Mohanji,
You have an extremely interesting blog here, well-written and informative, true to your passions as a conservator. Youm should have told me about this long ago; I knew not what I had been missing. I will keep coming back.
Venu
Post a Comment