Quite often we come across the term “Missing links ” while reading popular articles related to fossils in various news sites. The term Missing links is used to refer transitional forms.This term is mostly used in the popular media, but is always avoided in the scientific press as it is inaccurate and confusing. Majority of biologists are of the opinion that missing link is not appropriate term to use while referring to a transitional form not yet discovered in the fossil record.
What are fossils ?
Fossils are the remains of …

Hugo bellen’s lab generated Drosophila melanogaster bacterial artificial chromosome libraries with 21-kilobase and 83-kilobase inserts in the P[acman] system. P[acman] was developed by Koen Venken in Bellen’s laboratory,which allows scientists to study large chunks of DNA in living flies.Cloning huge fragments of DNA is not possible in classical P-elements and this has been over come in P[acman] that allows modification of cloned fragments by recombineering and germline transformation of genomic DNA fragments up to 133 kilobases.

Foxp2 gene was identified as gene involved in speech and language disorders, after studying an extended family referred to as KE. Over three generations of this family, about half the family members suffer from a number of problems, the most obvious of which is severe difficulty in speaking. The scientists could narrow down to Chromosome 7 by studying members of KE family ,but it was the comparison of the KE family data with that of another patient outside the family led them to discovery of Foxp2 gene. These …