• Question: how could sequencing its DNA benefit humanity

    Asked by dragon077 to Naval Shipworm on 3 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Naval Shipworm

      Naval Shipworm answered on 3 Nov 2017:


      In the short term, the genome of the Naval Shipworm will be lots of use to the fuel industry.

      You might have heard that farm byproducts are sometimes turned into fuel for cars and trucks – this will be even more important in the future as we run out of oil. The naval shipworm can digest wood – a really useful trick that very few organisms can perform.

      If we can work out how the naval shipworm breaks down wood, using the genome, we might be able to make the fuel production process much more efficient, and use plant material that presently is just thrown away.

      In the long term, there are also benefits that are difficult to define, but still important! Any animal genome tells you how an organism lives and grows. You never know what else will be useful for us to know about in the future!

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