Meet the gene genies! The Darwin Tree of Life project

You have probably heard of Charles Darwin (he got there first with his theory of evolution by natural selection) and DNA. But few of us can explain what a genome is and why genomes are so important.

In this podcast we ask Kes Scott-Somme, a Marine Biological Association scientist who works on the marine part of  the Darwin Tree of Life project (DToL), why so many people are interested in the genomes of marine organisms, and what is a genome, anyway?

As part of a global drive to describe the genetic make-up of life on Earth, DToL is cataloguing the genomes of 70,000 species in Britain and Ireland.

Kes also gets around to talking about careers in marine biology, taxonomy, and the importance of natural history.

Join this engaging discussion and find out how building a vast catalogue of genomes is relevant to human health, and dealing with the climate and biodiversity crisis.

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