A news article in Science Daily reports on a new tool that was developed by the group of Christian Schlötterer at the University of Vetrinary Medicine, Vienna. It is a software package called "PoPoolation2" which makes it possible for even non-experts to compare populations.The emergence of rapid throughput methods and the dropping of sequencing costs has made it possible for science laboratories to produce more and more data concerning the sequencing of DNA. Even still, it is hard to interpret the data.
This is where "PoPoolation2" comes in to make data easy to understand. This new tool is a software package that offers a variety of statistical methods which aid in determining how allele frequencies vary among populations. This new technology makes it quick and cheap to compare how populations have adapated to their environments over time, thus giving more insight to evolution as a whole.
This is really cool. I have always wanted to look at my own family DNA sequencing but I am still waiting on the prices to come down a little further. Looking at whole populations of people can help us understand the amount of diversity among human beings in general.
ReplyDelete