The New York Times article, "More Genes Than Humans: The Tomato Decoded," takes about the study of Tomatoes' genetic composition. Tomatoes have 31,760 genes which is 7,000 more than humans have. Various plant geneticists studied the tomato to try to decode the genome to breed better ones. The tomato which is technically a fruit in classification was actually declared a vegetable by the Supreme Court. This was an odd decision, but the tomato does have many similarities to its close relative the potato. Understanding the genome of the tomato could reveal insight into other plants of its family. The fact that tomatoes have more genes than humans doesn't mean that it is more complex, it just has a different way of managing cell based things. The tomato family has genetic complexity because it gained genes. In some instances it has as much as 3 times as much DNA. while this sounds like a problem, the change of having what is called triplication of DNA may have been what saved tomatoes from what ended the dinosaurs, as the change occurred on the same time frame.
This article choice was pretty random, but it just struck me as funny. Also, I had to click on it to see what the implications of tomatoes having more genes than humans were. It was well written and had some interesting facts like the Supreme Court ruling on tomatoes. I enjoyed the article, and I would have picked a different article had I not enjoyed it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/science/the-tomato-ripe-juicy-and-bursting-with-genes.html?_r=1&ref=science
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