All of the World's Yeast Probably Originated in China
Baker’s yeast, brewer’s yeast, yeast that lives in infected toenails—they all descended from a common ancestor.
When scientists in France set out to sequence 1,000 yeast genomes, they looked at strains from all the places you might expect: beer, bread, wine.
But also: sewage, termite mounds, tree bark, the infected nail of a 4-year-old Australian girl, oil-contaminated asphalt, fermenting acorn meal in North Korea, horse dung, fruit flies, human blood, seawater, a rotting banana. For five years, two geneticists—Gianni Liti, from the Université Côte d’Azur, from nearly everyone they met, whether doctors in French Guiana collecting human feces or Mexican tequila makers.
