Guest guest Posted October 23, 2008 Report Share Posted October 23, 2008 Group, Interesting stuff... Full story at: www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/21/scidna121.xml DNA barcoding all our flora and fauna By Sanjida O'Connell Last Updated: 12:01am BST 21/10/2008Page 1 of 2 Imagine going for a walk and spotting a wild flower. Its beauty and fragrance delight you but the name eludes you. No problem. You whip out a hand-held scanner, about the size of a mobile phone, and pop a fragment of a leaf into the device. A few seconds, and the read-out tells you that you're looking at a pyramidal orchid. Satisfied, you continue on your way. Sound far-fetched? Not at all. Scientists are currently gathering a DNA barcode for every species of plant and animal on the planet. It won't be long before everyone, from experts to amateurs, will be able to scan the world's flora and fauna as if they were checking out groceries at a supermarket, to look up or confirm their identities. There are numerous practical uses, too. Such a device would let you scan fish at the fishmonger's to check if it's been labelled properly, work out exactly what is in your mixed vegetable soup, and confirm whether a piece of furniture really has come from a renewable forest, as the retailer claims. It would also assist forensic science teams, who could quickly identify the pollen on a suspect, to link him to a particular location; custom officials, in their efforts to prevent disease-carrying pests being taken across national borders; and environmental inspectors assessing water quality, who need to work out which microbes are lurking in a particular sample. Continued... Alpha Environmental, Inc. IAQ/IEQ & Environmental Consulting Media, PA 19063 P: F: C: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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