Make the Snake

Published: Oct. 28, 2016, 5 a.m.

A team of researchers led by Axel Visel at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has replaced part of a mouse's DNA—a small sequence known as ZRS— with the equivalent sequence from a snake. That tiny change was enough to “serpentize” the mouse, to stop it from developing any limbs. Jeff and Anthony discuss the ramifications of these gene modifiers, and what it could mean for our future.

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Today’s story was sent in by Joseph Kane: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/what-a-legless-mouse-tells-us-about-snake-evolution/504779/

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