( Have you ever wondered how the myriad i...)Adult stem cells aid recovery in animal model of cerebral palsy

Insects make up 75% of all species known. The large number of insect species is probably a result of a combination of one or more factors: a high rate of formation of new species, or speciation, an ability to adapt to new environments and exploit new ecological niches, and a lower rate of extinction. Speciation, adaptation, and extinction are all controlled by the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Understanding the genetic changes that lead to the formation of new species is an important area of research in evolutionary biology.

In a new study, Thomas Turner, Matthew Hahn, and Sergey Nuzhdin worked with the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae to uncover genes that may be driving speciation. A. gambiae exists in multiple forms that may be in the early stages of differentiating into separate species; on the other hand, they may be partially differentiated, co-existing races that could give us valuable information on genes responsible for racial differences in mosquitoes. Turner and colleagues focused on two forms, A. gambiae M and A. gambiae S, that sometimes mate and create hybrid forms in nature. While it's unclear whether the forms can produce fertile hybrid offspring in the wild, the progeny of lab matings appear to have no problems with fertility. This suggests that individuals either naturally prefer to mate with others of their own form, or that there must be environmental and/or genetic conditions that are not favorable for the survival of hybrid progeny in nature.

To study the genetic underpinnings of speciation, the researchers used DNA microarrays to identify global differences in the mosquito genomes. Using a combination of gene chips, statistics, and computational biology, Turner and colleagues found that the M and S genomes differ at just three regions. The rese
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