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Humans Aren’t the Only Animals That Hold Elections

Humans Aren’t the Only Animals That Hold Elections | Research from the NC Agricultural Research Service | Scoop.it

 

Biologist, Dr. Rob Dunn of the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (CALS) at NC State University blogs on lessons humans might draw from animals:

"One of my racquetball buddies, Dave Tarpy [CALS honey bee specialist] ... studies honeybees decisions. Tarpy was a postdoctoral researcher with Tom Seeley and so has learned Seeley’s democracy-documenting ways, but Tarpy is more interested in queens than Seeley is. How do these solitary leaders become who they are? What allows some queens to succeed over others when there is a power vacuum in the hive?"

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NC State News and Information » Importance of Gene-Gene Interactions Shown in Study

NC State News and Information » Importance of Gene-Gene Interactions Shown in Study | Research from the NC Agricultural Research Service | Scoop.it

A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the epistatic network in fruit flies can be used to predict variation in quantitative genetic traits -- those controlled by multiple genes.

 

A team of researchers at NC State University published the paper, for  which Dr. Trudy Mackay, Wm. Neal Reynolds and Distinguished University Professor of Genetics, is the corresponding author.

 

The paper bolsters the effort to predict how genes affect physical or behavioral traits through the genotype-phenotype map. Understanding how genes interact in the process known as epistasis would move the effort closer to the goal.

 

The effects of these gene-gene interactions ... are difficult to gauge in human populations because some variations are unknown, says Dr. Trudy Mackay.

 

The pnas paper can be found here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/29/1213423109

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