Interesting Facts

The tiny water flea has more genes than you or I do. (It was the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced, and if you don't believe that it could be more complex than magnificent you, the average human has about 20,000 to 25,000 genes, whereas this little critter has  31,000 genes.  Which makes it the animal with the most genes to date.  As if that wasn't enough.  more than a third of the genes in the water flea are unique, and have never been seen before.  You see size really doesn't count, it's the actual count that matters.)

An international team of scientists has uncovered the full DNA sequence of the potato. (This should make it possible to develop improved varieties of potato, which at the moment takes about 10 years, much more quickly. I think I should ask them to analyse my potatoes, which from the size of them are really a species of pea.)

The Pinot Noir grape, used to make some excellent red wines, has about 30,000 genes in its DNA. (That's more than the human genome, which contains 20,000 to 25,000 genes. I do hope they never prove a link between intelligence and the number of genes, otherwise I have broken my own cardinal rule - never eat anything that might be more intelligent than you are.)

Scientists have discovered that long strands of DNA code are folded and tightly packed into the nucleus of a human cell. (Unfolded, the cell's genome - those strands of DNA code - would be approximately 2m in length and it's all packed into a tight ball to fit inside a nucleus, which is about one hundredth of a millimetre in diameter. Aren't we amazing?)