Nature Podcast The Nature Podcast highlights of 2025
Dec 24, 2025
Lizzie Gibney, a science journalist and Nature reporter, shares her insights from the centenary quantum meeting on Heligoland. She paints a vivid picture of the conference atmosphere and discusses groundbreaking topics like the pursuit of quantum superposition in larger systems. Lizzie also highlights advancements in quantum computing, including error correction techniques. In addition, there's fascinating news on a potato pangenome project aiming to enhance breeding resilience, revealing genetic complexities in these versatile tubers.
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Pan-Genome Reveals Potato Genetic Bottleneck
- Potato breeding is hampered by tetraploid genetics and low unique-sequence diversity among cultivars.
- A pan-genome of ten European varieties captures ~85% of their genetic diversity, aiding future sequencing.
Few Unique Sequences, Big Differences
- Potato varieties show very few unique DNA sequences, yet those unique regions are highly divergent when present.
- This suggests much diversity was lost before potatoes reached Europe, not solely during the transatlantic transfer.
Use Pan-Genome To Speed Potato Sequencing
- Use the pan-genome as a scaffold to speed up sequencing of other cultivars by mapping cheap reads to known sequences.
- This approach can accelerate identifying traits for breeding or genetic engineering.