Played a rousing game of linkurl:table tennis;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxZ-5wELSJM tonight. And by "rousing game" I mean to say that I was soundly drubbed by a Taiwanese gentleman (his name escapes me) who appears to be some sort of national champion. Even my scorching serves were parried with effortless flicks of his supple wrist. Though my game may have been tough, it was nothing compared to the game that linkurl:plant molecular biologists;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22227/ seeking to barcode the planet's flora must play. I learned today during the conference that while zoologists chug along, linkurl:barcoding;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53591/ more and more animal species with the use of the convenient CO1 gene marker, plant biologists are not so lucky. Firstly, plants from bryophytes to linkurl:angiosperms;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/18796/ do not play the CO1 game. The mitochondrial gene region that works so well as a barcode in animals is virtually invariable across plant taxa. Thoughts are that this may be due to variable linkurl:speciation...
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