Motoo Kimura and James Crow on the Infinitely Many Alleles Model

Motoo Kimura and James Crow on the Infinitely Many Alleles Model.

Kimura and Crow’s 1964 article is justly regarded as one of the foundational articles of evolutionary molecular genetics. It is based on what they called the “infinite alleles” model (now called the “infinitely many alleles” model). This model was motivated by the recognition that a gene is a sequence of perhaps several thousand nucleotides, implying that an astronomically large number of allel...

Motoo Kimura (1924-1994).

A model in two acts: a commentary on 'A model detectable alleles in a finite population' by Timoko Ohta and Motoo Kimura.

In the early 1970s, protein electrophoresis was the primary tool geneticists used to discover and measure allelic variation in natural populations. It was a relatively simple and inexpensive technique and, most importantly, it permitted the detection of multiple alleles regardless of polymorphism levels. This was a critical point because before the age of protein electrophoresis, segregating al...

James Franklin Crow (1916–2012)

years, like Lake Vostok, underneath the eponymous Russian research station at 77 degrees South. One of the largest lakes on our planet, Lake Vostok is comparable in volume to Lake Ontario. Back in 1998, a research team drilled around three kilometres deep into the ice shield stopping only a few hundred metres above the lake surface. The lower parts of the ice core, believed to consist of frozen...

James F . Crow and William F . Dove

LUTHER Burbank was a curious mixture: part garStalin’s ear. He was arrested in 1940 while on a collecting trip and was sentenced to death, but this was rescinded dener, part artist, part P. T. Barnum. He was responsible for a plethora of improved fruits, vegetables, in June 1942. He died in prison in 1943. Had he been able to continue his program, he would surely have and ornamentals. Some of t...