Darwin's Surprise. Genetics for the informed layman, If you like McPhee's style of literary jourjalism... Options

[dogu4]

While perusing 3quarksdaily for interesting articles I came across a link to the recent New Yorker in which an author, Michael Specter, very much in the style of the literary journalism of John McPhee and his Annals of the Ancient World, writes about the recent state of the research into genetics and some of the paradigm shifting perpectives that are emerging. Lots of interesting examples of evolutionary insight as a result of the newest understandings that are now being applied to human genetic studies and even in practical applications.
So...not specifically BF but with all the discussion regarding the scientific nature of the creature at large, some might find this elightening and maybe even worthy of further expansion.
Here's the link:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12...fa_fact_specter

[Mon0705]

Good find dogu4.

It's a pretty easy article to read. The idea of Endogenous Retroviruses has been around for a long time and it's been common knowledge in HIV fields that they provide protection against some outside (exogenous) retroviruses. It is becoming more and more well known that by tracing the genetic distribution of ERVs between various species we can do a pretty darn good job of estimating evolutionary relationships.

So to make a long story short, it doesn't have much use in the BF community. However, once we have a valid DNA sample from a BF, well...

[cryptidon]

Discussion with the author on NPR:

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/11/...1128_b_main.asp