How saliva can offer clues into our past

Published August 26, 2016 This content is archived.

An article in Popular Science reports a new genetic analysis by Omer Gokcumen, assistant professor of biological sciences. His work offers clues about how saliva evolved in humans and other primates, and quotes coauthor Duo “Erica” Xu, a UB PhD student in biological sciences. "Tandem repeats [of the MUC7 gene] may be a major way that many different genes in the genome quickly adapt to their environments," she said.

http://www.popsci.com/how-your-spit-evolved