The dogs living near the disaster site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant are not like other dogs—at least as far as their genomes go. In recent years, researchers uncovered a unique genetic profile among this population, but what’s driven this distinction remained unclear.
The explanation that’s perhaps most tantalizing to a sci-fi author is that the persistent radiation at the nuclear site has caused mutations to accumulate in the dogs’ genomes. But there are other ways a population’s genetics can change over time, such as random drift or natural selection. A recent study published in the scientific journal Genes revisited these pups, searching for genetic patterns pointing to one of these processes.
