Carl Zimmer Quote
The strange stripes on apples—known as twin spotting—might occur because a cell had two copies of a gene for color. One copy might be a light variant, the other dark. When the cell divided, it accidentally bequeathed two dark variants to one daughter cell, and two light ones to the other. When those cells multiplied, their daughters would inherit those new combinations. And since they grew next to each other, the result would be dark and light stripes. As geneticists studied these peculiar plants more carefully, they gave them a new name: mosaics.
Carl Zimmer
The strange stripes on apples—known as twin spotting—might occur because a cell had two copies of a gene for color. One copy might be a light variant, the other dark. When the cell divided, it accidentally bequeathed two dark variants to one daughter cell, and two light ones to the other. When those cells multiplied, their daughters would inherit those new combinations. And since they grew next to each other, the result would be dark and light stripes. As geneticists studied these peculiar plants more carefully, they gave them a new name: mosaics.
Related Quotes
About Carl Zimmer
Zimmer describes his journalistic beat as "life" or "what it means to be alive". He is the only science writer to have a species of tapeworm named after him (Acanthobothrium zimmeri). Zimmer's father is Dick Zimmer, a Republican politician from New Jersey, who was a member of U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997.