Posted on 05/07/2008 10:44:35 AM PDT by blam
Platypus genome is as weird as its looks
18:00 07 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Emma Young
It's part-reptile, part-mammal, part-bird and totally unique. Two centuries after European scientists deemed a dead specimen so outlandish it had to be a fake, the bizarre genetic secrets of Australia's platypus has been laid bare.
Platypuses lay eggs and produce venom like some reptiles, but they sport furry coats and feed their young with milk like mammals. The odd creatures are classed as monotremes, with only one close relative the echidna.
But as primitive mammals that share the same ancestor as humans, a study of the animal's genome can improve biologists' understanding of how mammals evolved, while illuminating the platypus's strange physiology.
Wesley Warren at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, led the international team that sequenced the platypus genome. As expected, they found an amalgam of some ancestral reptile and some newer mammalian features. But there were also surprises.
Ancient milk
And while the gene that the human sex-determining gene evolved from is present in the platypus genome, it seems to have nothing to do with sex determination. So, that function must have evolved after the platypus split from our common ancestor, about 166 million years ago.
However, by that time, milk production was well-evolved. The platypus has the same repertoire of milk protein genes as a cow or a human. Clearly, milk evolved long before we evolved to give birth to live offspring, says team member Jenny Graves at the Australian National University in Canberra.
The team also investigated the genes for the platypus toxin, which males deliver via a barbed spur on their heel. While the toxin is similar to a snake's adapted from natural neurotransmitters and other proteins
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
It must have huh? Well, they do sound pretty sure. I'm glad "science" is so exact. Don't question it. It must have happened that way. It must have. We didn't actually ever see it, but that's the way it must have happened if our theories are correct. The only other possibility is that our theories are incorrect, and that is impossible, because "science" never makes mistakes.
And I do have to tell you that the title of that story was...tit-illating.....
Is that what Platypi put in their gardens?
thanks, bfl
Just shows that He has a sense of humor ;-)
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