What is going on with plant domestication?
PNAS has a paper on barley domestication out right now. It is nicely open access, so read it yourself, and come right back! I have to admit that I did not like the paper too much. It seemed to derive far too many conclusions from a few rudimentary (…
The last word on dog genesis is not nigh!
In my post below Rob commented: Surely the genetic evidence is pointing towards a single domestication event (see http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/11/new-data-fuels-dogfight-over-the.html?ref=hp) My general response is not to accept the latest press release about the genetic origin of dogs. I keep track of the literature and it’s rather fluid. For example, I woke up this morning, and this […]
Domestication as introgression and assimilation
The Pith: the spread of domestic rice may be a function not of the spread of rice per se, as much as a specific narrow set of genes which confer domestication to disparate rice lineages.
This has been a big month for rice. At least for me. Despite my b…
Why rice is so nice
The Pith: What makes rice nice in one varietal may not make it nice in another. Genetically that is….
Rice is edible and has high yields thanks to evolution. Specifically, the artificial selection processes which lead to domestication. The ̶…