The desert dingo beat out an explosive beetle, a pit viper and pink pigeon to win a grant to have its genome sequenced
It sounds like an argument scientists might have during a night of drinking: Which creature has the world's most interesting genome? But the question is more than a passing musing.
San Francisco biotech company Pacific Biosciences held a public competition to determine which critter should receive the honor. The winner: Sandy Maliki, a pure-bred Australian desert dingo. The company will now sequence the dingo's genome to help researchers study the process of domestication.
Sandy beat out four other interesting finalists in the competition, receiving 41 percent of the public votes, which were cast from around the world. This is the fourth year the company has sponsored the competition. The company invites researchers to send in grant proposals explaining why the interesting plants and animals they study should be sequenced. Then a committee of scientists whittles the entries down to five finalists for the final public vote.
This year, the finalists included the explosive bombardier beetle, which emits a boiling hot explosive gas when attacked; the pink pigeon, an endangered relative of the extinct dodo; a sea slug that steals chloroplasts from algae and the temple pit viper, whose venom could have medicinal value.
Read more..