6065833@pucc.UUCP (05/26/87)
Craig Werner writes, regarding a discussion of "apemen": >> This ignores the fact that Apes have 48 chromosomes and >>humans have 46, and sounds more like somebody's idea of a hoax, >>or a typical article from the National Enquirer. Anthony Pelletier writes: >Craig, if you mean second year student, say second year student. >Once again you show your passion for facts without any real understanding >of what they mean. I do not for a moment suggest that the article about >the chimp/human hybrid is necessarily true. >I do, however, wish to point out that >you reason for declaring it false is irrelevent. [...] >In fact, due to heterosis, the hybrid is superior in many ways to either >parent [...] >The rather cute trick that plants such as triticum aestivum (wheat) >have used to produce fertile new species from a sterile hybrid is to >undergo endo-reduplication to produce a 2n (6x, in the case of wheat) >plant. My favorite example of viable hybridization is rapeseed, which is currently grown in Canada and Europe. Rapeseed is the product of a cabbage and (if I recall correctly) turnip cross which first occured in a monastery vegetable garden in the middle ages, according to acquaintances at Uni. Goettingen's plant genetics lab (in West Germany). The cross has been duplicated in labs recently. The "parent" plants have different numbers of chromosomes, and the cross is, I believe, polyploid, and fertile. What I found interesting was that the plant was cultivated and preserved for a thousand years ONLY in vegetable gardens. I wish people were as good at preserving wild species. This plant, by the way, is a good example if punctuated evolution. Una Smith 6065833@PUCC