Welcome to this questions and answer session on cross fertilisation, which has also been called contamination, with Wendy harwood and Huw Jones.

Genes shared across species that produce different phenotypes—deafness in humans and directional growth in plants—may reveal new models of disease.

Synthetic Genetic Evolution

Polar Bears Evolutionarily Five Times Older and Genetically More Distinct: Ancestry Traced Back 600,000 Years

Small DNA circles found outside the chromosomes in mammalian cells and tissues, including human cells

This image shows an electron microscope photo of a microDNA circle. An illustration of the double helix portion surrounds the circle. Credit: Smaranda Wilcoxx, Griffith Lab, UNC-Chapel Hill.

In a broader sense, it could also reveal more about why animals, including humans, do things that are potentially risky but that benefit someone else.

"In previous studies, she's managed to distinguish between two objects that differed in width by less than the thickness of a human hair."

This could be especially important for the development of treatments for slow-healing skin wounds in malnourished, hypothermic, diabetic and elderly patients.

Zebra stripes evolved to keep biting flies at bay