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Bearded dragons are famous for their ability to change sex depending on heat and genes. Two new genome projects have revealed the likely master gene, Amh, behind this switch — finally solving a reptile mystery that has baffled scientists for years. Credit: Shutterstock Scientists have finally cracked one of the strangest mysteries in reptile biology: how bearded dragons decide their sex. Breakthrough Genomes Reveal Bearded Dragon’s Secrets Two separate research teams have now released near-complete reference genomes of the central bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps), a lizard species that ranges widely across central eastern Australia and is also a favorite pet...

Genetic Recombination Study Defies Human-Chimp Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Results from a recent study in human and chimpanzee genetics have shipwrecked yet another Darwinian hypothesis.1 Genetic recombination is one of the key events that occur during the production of egg and sperm cells, and secular scientists have long thought it to be a major driver of human and ape evolution. When sperm and egg cells are formed in humans and various animals, the process of meiosis generates genetic variation. For example, since humans have two sets of chromosomes, when similar ones (i.e., sister chromatids)–one each from your mother...

Enlarge Image At risk. Farmed chickens are dying from a recombined vaccine. Credit: NRCS/USDA Vaccines aren't supposed to cause disease. But that appears to be what's happening on Australian farms. Scientists have found that two virus strains used to vaccinate chickens there may have recombined to form a virus that is sickening and killing the animals. "This shows that recombination of such strains can happen and people need to think about it," says Glenn Browning, a veterinary microbiologist at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, in Australia and one of the co-authors on the paper. Chickens worldwide are susceptible to...

It is assumed that most organisms have sex because the resulting genetic recombination allows Darwinian selection to work better. It is now shown that in water fleas, recombination does lead to fewer deleterious mutations.