Bigger, better bird tree of life will soon fly into view.

Led by Brian Smith at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and Brant Faircloth at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, they are taking a cheaper, faster route with the OpenWings Project. The U.S. National Science Foundation–funded effort will tap extensive museum collections as much as possible, instead of freshly caught bird samples, and will sequence about 5000 short pieces of the DNA, focusing on regions that are very highly conserved among all birds. The group plans to release data on an ongoing basis, rather than waiting for the project’s publication, so other researchers can make use of it.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/bigger-better-bird-tree-life-will-soon-fly-view

Posted on April 17, 2018 10:02 AM by biohexx1