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Humans And Kangaroos Have Similar Genetic Code

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 10:56 CST

Australian researchers said Tuesday that kangaroo's are genetically similar to humans and may have first evolved in China.

They said they had for the first time mapped the genetic code of Kangaroos and found it similar to the genome for humans. 

"There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," Center of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics Director Jenny Graves told reporters in Melbourne.

"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," Graves said, according to AAP.

It was 150 million years ago that humans and kangaroos last shared an ancestor.  Mice and humans last shared their closest  relative 70 million years ago.

They said that kangaroos first evolved in China but later migrated across the Americas to Australia and Antarctica.

"Kangaroos are hugely informative about what we were like 150 million years ago," Graves said.

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On the Net:

• Center of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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