Gene Swap in Plants Surprises Scientists.

By Ronald Kotulak, Chicago Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jul. 10--Once thought to be forbidden by nature, the exchange of genes between totally unrelated species of plants seems to occur on a wide scale, Indiana University researchers reported Wednesday.

Their findings, which appear in the British science journal Nature, come as a surprise to biologists who thought that evolution built a firewall to protect one organism's genes from intermingling with those of other organisms.

"I never expected this would happen," said Manyuan Lo