In this article scientists looked at the genes of three different sheep breeds in the UK; they looked at the Herdwicks, Rough Fells, and Dalesbred. All three of these sheep breeds are commercially farmed in this area for human needs. Out of the three sheep studied the Herdwick sheep was very different than the other UK sheep breeds; the Herdwicks had a “primitive genome” that was only found in them. This genome is found previously in very few breeds worldwide and has not been seen on the UK mainland. During this study the scientists also found that all three of these UK breeds had a much lower average of being affected by the disease Maidi Visna. This disease has caused worldwide problems for commercially raised sheep and has led to large economic impacts. Based on the data seen from this study scientists are going to see if locally adapted breeds of livestock to increase resilience to new pressures from climate change.
In my option this study can open doors for scientists to look at other species that are not affected by deadly diseases. The data found from these studies can lead to show how animals fight off these problems and intern live and can feed our rapidly growing population. This is a very important thing because the more healthy animals we can have for food purposes the less global starvation there will be.
This Link has more information on the disease Maidi Visna.
This article proves how advanced our world is today because they can pinpoint what a "primitive genome" is in a species when given all sorts of genes to encode. I agree with you when you say this can open doors and find what gene is causing an animal to fight off a disease and survive. Maybe they can do that for humans as well, although I've heard of scientists studying certain genes that are said to fight off or turn off diseases, it'll still be a long way to figure it all out. But really interesting article, and I hope scientists can better the health of animals by curing them of their diseases in the future.
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