Genetic Engineering can reverse evolutionary history of species. This has been proved recently in a work by US scientists who produced hybrids of blind cave fish with partial vision. Blind cavefish are descendents of surface fish with sight. They were isolated from the surface fish and took refuge inside dark caves for nearly one million years and their evolutionary trait made them loose their capacity for vision.
In their study, published in the current issue of the journal Current Biology, researchers crossbred four species of the blind fish living in the northeast Mexican caves. To the delight of the scientists, they found that the hybrids were not only capable of developing their capacity of vision, but could also connect to the brain for proper information processing!
This study, if carried further ahead, will hold good possibility in eliminating hereditary diseases by eliminating bad mutants from the gene pool.
Image: practical fishkeeping
Source: cba
