Study about chicken shows evolution can happen in a relatively short time

There is a popular assumption suggesting that evolution is only visible over long time scales. But recently a study about chickens overturns the assumption. A group of scientists led by Professor Greger Larson from Oxford University's Research Laboratory for Archaeology studied individual chickens that were part of a long-term pedigree and found two mutations that had occurred in the mitochondrial genomes of the birds in only 50 years. Before this, it is widely believed by scientists that the rate of change in the mitochondrial genome was never faster than about two percent per million years. The results showed that the rate of evolution in this pedigree is 15 times faster in fact. What's more, the group also found a single instance of mitochondrial DNA being passed down from a father by determining the genetic sequences along the pedigree. This unexpected discovery shows that paternal leakage is not that rare as it was believed before. The study is published in Biology Letters online. Read more:http://www.cusabio.com/ELISA-Kit/Human-Interleukin-18IL-18-ELISA-KIT-11090105.html