Kangaroo genes close to humans

[Gay Titan]

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans and may have first evolved in China, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists said they had for the first time mapped the genetic code of the Australian marsupials and found much of it was similar to the genome for humans, the government-backed Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics said.

"There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," centre Director Jenny Graves told reporters in Melbourne.

"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," Graves said, according to AAP.

Humans and kangaroos last shared an ancestor at least 150 million years ago, the researchers found, while mice and humans diverged from one another only 70 million years ago.

Kangaroos first evolved in China, but migrated across the Americas to Australia and Antarctica, they said.

"Kangaroos are hugely informative about what we were like 150 million years ago," Graves said.

[LaFille]

In proportion, it appears that genomes vary very little from a specie to the other when compared to the total number of genes... Something like 2% at most between humans and chimps, IIRC, for example (though that may still represent thousands if not millions of different genes). It would be expectable that the genome of most mammals would be closer to our genome than that of a marsupial like the kangaroo, I suppose... But these kinds of researches can unveil really interesting punches and force us to reconsider whole branches of the "family tree" we're trying to establish, which is quite cool.

I remember a few years ago such researches completely busted the idea of the cetacea's origin and established their link with what makes the ungulates of today... But that is on a different scale of the "family tree". What would be interesting is to find more about the genetic links between marsupials and mammals like that and monotremes (platypus, lay eggs but milks their babies); then warm-blooded egg-layers like birds, then reptiles, then fishes, etc... This field is very young and there's a lot left to find.

[Hildor]

Well if you look at Pete you aren't suprised by this news.

What I'm interested in is the whole bunch of DNA that we still don't know anything about. I wonder what research will bring up there in human and any other DNA.

[killerzzz]

So thats why kangaroos are such good boxers...

Interesting find.

Killerzzz

[Hildor]

No, that's why we are good boxers.
The cake is a lie my friend

[rhiian]

Explains why we all have a bounce in our step when we're happy ;D