Cow Genome Decoded

A cow that produces low-fat milk was discovered a few years back. That cow, Marge, has now passed on her mutant abilities to her daughters, a good sign for researchers hoping to someday breed skim-milk cows. But to get more of where that came from, more cows may be needed since thereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s likelihood that cows like Marge would produce less milk.

The genome of a cow has been decoded, and the work could lead to breeders selecting for features that would make higher quality milk and better beef. At a cost of $53 million in a project involving more than 300 researchers, one would hope so. The work has shown that while we humans are more closely related to rodents than to cows in terms of the family tree, our genome more closely resembles those of cows. Moo.

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