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- THE WEEK, Page 19HEALTH & SCIENCEEt Cetera
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- OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND . . .
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- A bird called the blackcap has been showing up in Britain
- lately, in droves. Seems these birds of the forest, which used
- to winter in the western Mediterranean, have changed their
- migratory routes. German researchers studied some blackcaps and
- their offspring, and report in Nature that the change is
- genetic; responding to some environmental signal, the birds'
- hard-wired migratory instructions have evolved in an
- astonishingly short 30 years.
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- FOREVER YOUNG
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- Fruit flies are the mules, if you will, of genetic research;
- they breed fast, and their simple chromosomes are ideal for the
- study of heredity. Now a group of U.S. biologists has found a
- way to freeze living fly embryos. Not only does that guarantee a
- stable fly supply, but it is a landmark achievement in another
- sense: fruit flies are the most complex organisms ever to be lab
- frozen and revived. The technique could lead, albeit far down
- the road, to the freezing of mammals -- even humans, maybe.
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