Tag Archives: Wellcome Sanger Institute

Are you sett for this new discovery? 🦡

Research into the European Badger (Meles meles) and their extraordinary nocturnal behaviours is really rather exciting… have you heard the good news!?  The University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (Wild CRU) and Wellcome Sanger Institute have been looking into how badger biology and behaviour are giving us insights into the impacts of disease and climate change on the UK landscape. They collected some blood samples from an individual badger plus both of its parents (don’t worry, they are all happy and healthy) in Wytham Woods – a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Oxford.  They then extracted DNA from the samples, to sequence and build a genome profile.  The best thing about this?  Well, the badger is an indictor species of climate change.  Because of its widespread habitat – across much of Eastern Europe, Asia and Japan – badgers are a good model species through which to assess … Continue reading

Posted on June 27, 2022 by modchryssa in DToL, Update. Tagged , , , . Leave a comment

Darwin Tree of Life was on the news! 📰

Rebecca Morelle, a science editor for the BBC, picked up on the fantastic work being conducted by the scientists as part of the Darwin Tree of Life project.  How fantastic is that! We are delighted that the project is being recognised for its ambition and the ground-breaking research that it is hoping to produce. This project, to sequence over 70,000 species (yes, you heard that right, 70,000!) is ambitious for many reasons.  Not least because the goal is to make history by 2030! 8 years from now. Do you think they can do it? What is the species you would like to see sequenced next? Let us know in the comments. Jamie McGowan, who is part of the Perfect Protists team, has been busy with some pond water.  He is set up in the lab, looking through a microscope at a single drop of water. In this single drop, there … Continue reading

Posted on June 17, 2022 by modchryssa in DToL, Update. Tagged , , , , , , , . Leave a comment