If all dogs descended from wolves, why do they look so different? Scientists have identified a section on chromosome 15 that small dogs share. They believe that this genetic mutation resulted in small dogs that were then bred and traded. Small dog breeds were developed for hunting small rodents and for living in houses with people.

Not all peppers are hot stuff. A deletion, or loss of a piece of DNA, in front of a gene on chromosome 2 makes them mild. Peppers that have the deletion cannot make capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot. Wild chilies are hot to stop animals from eating them. Selecting and growing plants with the mild trait has kept the mutation in the gene pool.

Wild bananas are full of seeds. The seeds signal the plant to grow the pulp that covers them. Over thousands of years farmers selected banana plants for two mutations. The first mutation is for plants that don’t make seeds. The second mutation is that the plants still grow the fruity pulp even when the seeds are not there. So, how do we get new banana plants? Clones!