Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

How oskar the gene invented sex

12.15.2020 - By Alan AldaPlay

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A leading scientist who studies how genes make bodies, Cassandra Extavour almost became a musician and still sings professionally. She works with an extraordinary insect gene called oskar. Hundreds of millions of years ago oskar borrowed a fragment of a bacterial DNA that made sexual reproduction possible in the vast majority of animals– including you, me, and scientists who sing.

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