A light micrograph of the bladder of a carnivorous bladderwort plant (Utricularia gibba). A study by researchers at the University at Buffalo (UB) found that this plant has more genes than several well-known species such as grape, coffee or papaya -- despite having a much smaller genome. The work builds on past research by various team members which found that the bladderwort's genome was comprised almost entirely of useful, functional genes and their controlling elements, in contrast to species like humans, whose genomes are more than 90 percent "junk DNA."
Credit: Enrique Ibarra-Laclette and Claudia Anahí Pérez-Torres