Yersinia pestis genome sequenced

Scientists have extracted Yersinia pestis dna sequences from black death victims from a cementary in the city of london.
The yersinia pestis chromosone is over 4 megabases long.
Yersinia pestis is related to yersinia pseudotuberculosis, an soil living bacteria from which it differs by 2 additional plasmids.
The black death strain of yersinia pestis appears to be the ancestor  of all modern strains infecting humans emerging perhaps around 1340(black death was spreading in europe 1346-1353,spreading from india /china direction )
The black death may have originated from marmots in whom plague bacteria  has been discovered that is similiar to yersinia pestis in humans(indeed yersinia pestis has been called marmot plague in the past).

Eating plant material can alter gene expression in animals and humans

A research team at Nanjing University in China has found that plant like rice,brussels sprouts and possibly lots of other plants have  genetic material that can survive passage though the human or animal stomachs and enter the blood stream.
MicroRNA, particulary MIR168a andMIR156a  can survive the gut bacteria and digestive system , it was found by the research team in the livers and lungs of mice.
Gene expression was altered in about 50 genes including a gene that lowers cholesterol levels, causing cholesterol levels to rise.
Alteration of human gene expression  by plants might be as old as humanity.

potato genome has been sequenced

The potato which is related to aubergine, pepper,petunia and tomato has had its genome sequenced.
It has an estimated  844 megabase genome, over 24,000 genes, including over 3,000 snps, 28  kunitz protease inhibitor genes,which respond to pest and pathogen attacks.

The following genes give resistance to potato blight;
rb
rpi-blb2
rpi-vnt1
r1
r2
r3a

The potato was originally grown in peru area,but has since spread throughout the world.
Search Amazon.com for potato genetics

orang-utan genetics

The orang-utan genome has been sequenced from five sumatran orang-utan and five bornean  orang-utan and indicates that orang-utan split from the other apes about 400,000 years ago,the genome contains  over 3 gb of genetic sequences.
The analysis suggest that the orang-utan genome has undergone fewer genomic rearrangements than the human and chimpanzee genome from whom orang-utan supposedly split about 12-16 million years ago.