Friday, December 12, 2014

Science: Bird Genomes Sequenced for Avian Tree of Life

Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid hit Earth, killing the dinosaurs and many other life forms. Birds were among the survivors, and, after that mass extinction, as life began to flower again, a burst of evolution gave rise to the more than 10,000 bird species we know today. As VOA’s Rosanne Skirble reports, researchers worldwide have joined to create the most reliable avian tree of life to date.