Dolphins have Genes for Smelling

Another curious tale of dead genes involves our sense of smell, or rather our poor sense of smell, for humans are truly bad sniffers among land mammals. Nevertheless, we can still recognize over 10,000 different odors. How can we accomplish such a feat? Until recently, this was a completely mystery. The answer lies in our DNA—in our many olfactory receptor (OR) genes. [...] Our own sense of smell comes nowhere close to that of mice. One reason is that we express fewer OR genes—only abou...

 Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans was chosen in the 1960s as an ideal experimental animal by the formidably brilliant South African biologist Sydney Brenner. He had recently completed his work, with Francis Crick and others at Cambridge, on cracking the genetic code, and was looking around for a new big problem to solve. His inspired choice, and his own pioneering research on its genetics and neuro-anatomy, has led to a worldwide community of Caenorhabditis researchers that has grown into the thousands....