Category: Uncategorized

ASPARAGUS LANDSCAPE. “The genus Asparagus includes just over 200 species, the vast majority of which are hermaphrodites. Previous work has shown that dioecy arose within a single clade in the Asparagus phylogeny.” https://lnkd.in/gKA5C8N View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first weekend on the theme of viral dark matter. Physics is thwarted by the presence of a majority of the physical world being unknown dark matter. So with biology. But in the case of biology, we have adopted an ostrich pose to account for our ignorance, with an early focus only on disease, and a persistent and willful attitude that these are non-living (and thus irrelevant) entities. A few pioneers are trying to pull biologists out of the Dark Ages. View in LinkedIn

PRECEDENT DETAILS. “The experimental one-gene sex determination systems described for melon and maize, involve mutations in two genes, but it is the segregation of a single functional gene that ultimately determines sex.” https://lnkd.in/gKA5C8N View in LinkedIn

HOW MANY TYPES OF VIRUS EXIST is a different question from how many individual viral particles exist (10(31)). “At present only a small part of the total diversity of viruses has been studied, with analyses of samples from humans finding that about 20% of the virus sequences recovered have not been seen before, and samples from the environment, such as from seawater and ocean sediments, finding that the large majority of sequences are completely novel.” The large majority! https://lnkd.in/eF3wTsF View in LinkedIn

ONE HOUSE TO TWO HOUSES. “As had been demonstrated earlier in maize, fixation of a null mutation at one locus in a monecious population set the stage for segregation of a null mutation at a second locus, resulting in dioecy and single-gene sex determination.” https://lnkd.in/gKA5C8N View in LinkedIn

TWO HOUSES. “Roughly 6% of all angiosperms are dioecious but the genes controlling sex determination and their organization on sex chromosomes in diecious plants are largely unknown.” https://lnkd.in/gKA5C8N View in LinkedIn

SEX CHANGE. “How asparagus recently changed its lifestyle from hermaphroditism to distinct males and females.” https://lnkd.in/gKA5C8N View in LinkedIn

A CASE STUDY of complex sex gene evolution in the garden asparagus. This lovely study illustrates the subtlety and complexity of sex gene evolution in a vegetable well known to most of us. I hope that you will never again see the humble asparagus in the same light, but rather marvel at the ingenuity in common creatures. https://lnkd.in/gKA5C8N View in LinkedIn

INDEPENDENT EVOLUTION. "There seems to be little consensus on the effects of the various plant hormones on sex expression in plants, again arguing that the systems have evolved independently." https://lnkd.in/gb3zS32 View in LinkedIn

INDUCED GENDER. "Male flowers can be induced to form on genetically female plants by the application of the weak synthetic auxin, alpha (2-chlorophenylthio) propionic acid." https://lnkd.in/gb3zS32 View in LinkedIn