Necrophiliac Recombination: Because Regular Sex Is So Boring

Sunday, May 4, 2014 - 12:01 in Biology & Nature

How can you be both a necrophiliac and chaste? Welcome to the fascinating world of bacterial reproduction. Bacteria don't have sex the way humans think of sex - they can mix their genetic material in a  process called recombination, by pulling in DNA from dead bacterial cells and inserting them into their own genome. New research led by Imperial College London has found that this process – called recombination – is more complex than was first thought. The findings, published today in PLoS Genetics, could help us understand why bacteria which cause serious diseases are able to evade vaccines and rapidly become drug-resistant. read more

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