The gene encoding for the protein Cytochrome oxidase is a remarkable tool in species identification and classification, writes R S P Rao.  Please click here for more information on this article.

A "barcode gene that can be used to distinguish between the majority of plant species has been identified, say scientists.  For more information on this article please click here.

For more information on this article, please click here.

For more information on this article please click here.

Please click here for more information on this article.

The year in science and medicine - WHAT LIES BENEATH

When David Jones, a fisheries oceanographer at the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) located at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School, set out to design a better light trap to collect young reef fishes, he never imagined his invention would contribute to the discovery of a new species. But, after finding a goby that didn’t quite fit any known description, his catch turned out to be the answer to another scientist’s twenty-five-year-old research conundrum. The larval stage captured in Jones’s new trap was matched to the adult form of a previously unknown species of reef fish by new DNA barcoding technology - which confirmed both were members of a new species.

For more on this article click here.(http://www.sciencedaily.com/)

Quick-and-easy DNA identification of animals is under way, but plants are proving harder to pigeonhole.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5848/190

Biologists want to barcode half a million species in the next five years.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9828729

http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/03/stories/2007090357052000.htm

STEPHEN STRAUSS: SCIENCE FRICTION
Next important discovery? How to sell
Scientists need help to market names of new species

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_strauss/20070730.html

STEPHEN STRAUSS: SCIENCE FRICTION
Scientists lag in name game
Identification of new species races way ahead of classification

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_strauss/20070724.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12293-hidden-species-may-be-surprisingly-common.html

Håndholdt. Alle dyr og planter skal på stregkode. Med et enkelt bip skal man kunne tjekke, om det er en sjælden blomst, man han set på engen, om det vitterlig er en torskefilet, der er i fryseren, og om den eksotiske souvenir fra Afrika stammer fra en truet dyreart.

http://www.weekendavisen.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070622/IDEER/106220090

http://www.genomicseducation.ca/genomics_and_you/innovative_technology/dna_upc.htm

An Institute of Evolutionary Biology special! Graham Stone has the gall to discuss gallwasps, David Schindel and Mark Blaxter decode the promise of DNA barcoding, and Adin Ross-Gillespie cooperates with the podcast by talking about cheats.

http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/public/podcasts.php

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118002809888213590.html

Biodiversity researchers try to bury the hatchet over barcoding.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070423/full/446960a.html

http://www.sciencefriday.com/news/041907/news0419071.html

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0700466104v1

Taxonomy in an age of transformation.

Every plant and animal has a mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene, and its sequence helps researchers assign that plant or animal to a given species, with some degree of certainty. The precise degree of the certainty obtained using this 'barcode' sequence is a matter of some debate, but such sequences are clearly useful to both taxonomists and those who use applied taxonomy. And the industrial-scale sequencing that allowed Craig Venter's ocean-metagenomics consortium to deposit billions of letters of sequence from hundreds of thousands of microbe genes into the GenBank database this week opens up even more possibilities.

As we celebrate the visionary genius of Carl Linnaeus, it is time to analyse how professional taxonomy interfaces with the rest of biology and beyond. Where next for Linnaeus's heirs, asks H. C. J. Godfray?

Podcast  with Mark Stoeckle available:

http://www.earthsky.org/radioshows/51122/dna-barcodes-for-plant-and-animal-ids

PROGRAM M07-1

Hace ya unos años los científicos están aplicando resultados de sus investigaciones en genética a otras disciplinas. Así, más de 130 instituciones han decidido sumar esfuerzos para generar una base de datos que entre otras cosas pueda ayudar a identificar a todas las especies de seres vivos del planeta. Las aves y los peces son los vertebrados con mayor avance en el armado de este catálogo genético, que aspira a convertirse en una herramienta clave en conservación.  El autor de este artículo Vicedirector del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, participa activamente de este desafío internacional. Aquí nos pone al tanto del proyecto y del papel que juega la Argentina

Podcast  with Mark Stoeckle available:

http://www.earthsky.org/clear-voices/51118/expert-dna-barcoding-project-just-begun

http://newswire.rockefeller.edu/?page=engine&id=598

Using technique pioneered at U of G, researchers attempt to catalogue all the varieties of life on planet Earth

Canadian and U.S. scientists distinguish 21 new species of birds and bats from identical looking species in the Americas amid a study aimed at creating a “genetic sketch” of every animal on Earth.

http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_14903-New-Bats-New-Birds-DNA-Barcoding-Uncovers-New-Species.html

A bird in the taxonomic hand may actually be two in the bush, according to the results of a genetic survey of all North American avians.

Paul Hebert and colleagues are featured in CBC news for DNA barcoding and how it’s aided to identify 15 overlooked species of North American birds.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/02/19/science-dnabarcode.html

At unprecedented levels of difficulty involving highly biodiverse and continent-sized landscapes, scientists have successfully tested their ability to identify and DNA "barcode" entire assemblages of species -- the prelude to a genetic portrait of all animal life on Earth.

http://strangebehaviors.wordpress.com/tag/classification-of-species/

Genetic tests of North American birds show what may be 15 new species including ravens and owls -- look alikes that do not interbreed and have wrongly had the same name for centuries, scientists said on Sunday.

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL188950120070218

Sorting out what we mean by a species, and bringing order to higher level groupings, are important activities for microbial taxonomists. But Phil Williamson and his colleagues argue that the real priorities are more prosaic, yet pragmatic:'what exactly is out there?' and 'what features should we use to routinely distinguish organisms of different kinds?'

http://www.sgm.ac.uk/pubs/micro_today/

Devotees of DNA bar-coding, a method of differentiating species using short, standard DNA sequences, hope to speed the description of new kinds of organisms and make it easier for nontaxonomists to identify tricky specimens such as the tachinid fly (Adejeania vexatrix). Keeping track of the latest developments in the field is Mark Stoeckle, a physician who teaches in the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University in New York City. Last March, Stoeckle launched the Barcode of Life Blog, which provides weekly news updates, analyses of papers, and other information. Recent posts, for example, discuss the technique's success in distinguishing hard-to-separate species of red algae and why the mitochondrial DNA sequences often used as bar codes differ more between species than within them.

The Smithsonian National Museum for Natural History Annual Report 2005 features DNA barcoding among its "New Tools for Understanding Nature". The full version of the report is available from the NMNH Office of Development and Public Affairs.

Paul Hebert answers a few questions about this month's fast moving front in the field of Biology & Biochemistry.

Review of the memoir, The Snoring Bird, which glosses over the fact that biology is in the midst of a new-some would say revolutionary-effort to catalogue Earth's biological diversity, using DNA barcoding. - Lindsay Borthwick  

DNA barcoding work led by Mark Siddall at the American Museum of Natural History has revealed that commercially available medicinal leeches, until now assumed to be the species Hirudo medicinalis, used around the world in research and after surgery, are actually a closely related but genetically distinct species, Hirudo verbana.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/11/nleech111.xml