Have you ever wondered why store-bought tomatoes just don't taste as good as the homegrown varieties? So have scientists — so they launched an extensive study that suggests the answer to the mediocrity lies in the fruits' DNA.
Modern tomatoes that are sold in most supermarkets have "narrow genetic diversity" compared to heirloom varieties, according to research published in Nature Genetics on Monday. In order to determine the true potential for tomatoes, scientists mapped out the genes of 725 varieties of tomato and assembled them into what's called a pan-genome — "a genome that captures the genetic information of all the varieties," explained Discover Magazine. From that pan-genome, the researchers determined that the average supermarket tomato — dubbed the Heinz 1706 — is missing almost 5,000 genes that other varieties of tomato have.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Today's political cartoons - November 23, 2024Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - qualifications, tax cuts, and more
-
Long summer days in Iceland's highlandsThe Week Recommends While many parts of this volcanic island are barren, there is a 'desolate beauty' to be found in every corner
-
The Democrats: time for wholesale reform?Talking Point In the 'wreckage' of the election, the party must decide how to rebuild
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was rightSpeed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular storiesSpeed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an oceanSpeed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mindSpeed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeepingSpeed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
-
An amphibian that produces milk?speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
-
Jupiter's Europa has less oxygen than hopedspeed read Scientists say this makes it less likely that Jupiter's moon harbors life
