The origins of cultivated maize have puzzled evolutionary biologists for many years. The upright, unbranched maize plant with its large, closely packed ear, can survive only by careful cultivation and propagation, and it seems implausible that maize couldbe derived from its wild grass-like relatives: how could such r apid evolution have occurred during the relatively recent comse of agricultural history? On page 485 of this issue, Doebley et al. go some way to resolving this question — they describe a molecular component of one of the traits that distinguishes maize from its closest wild relative, teosinte.
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