观点科学

A giant genome shows size doesn’t matter

The new discovery in the south Pacific illustrates the mystery surrounding the code of life

The writer is a science commentator

Small things can sometimes come in very big packages. That is true of a little fern that grows on a handful of islands in the south Pacific.

The unremarkable-looking plant turns out to have the biggest genome ever discovered, around 50 times the size of the human one. It now holds three Guinness World Records: the largest genome for a living organism, largest plant genome and largest fern genome.

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