this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Researching plant genomes! Honestly, it's a lot of fun.
I'd like to hear the latest cool thing you have learned!
Sure! So, there's this mechanism called "methylation" that can turn off which genes are expressed at different times/in different tissues. It occurs in almost all organisms, but we don't fully understand the role it plays across different tissues in plants. However, the evidence suggests it may play a significant role in cells going from being stem cells (as in can become many kinds of cell, not literally part of the stem), to being the tissue they ultimately end up as. Better understanding this may help us figure out why some plants can easily be vegetatively propagated, while others are more picky about it.
Awesome topic. Methylation is amazing. If you are into evolutionary theory, I think it's cool because it's sort of a mechanism for inheritance of acquired characteristics. Darwinian evolution is the dominant mechanism over long periods of time, but being able to pre-adapt your offspring to current conditions adds another layer. If you like mind-bending stuff, the topic of the evolution of evolvability makes my head hurt, very meta.