As a major cereal crop, rice (Oryza sativa L.) is crucial to food security for at least half the world population. New varieties with high yield potential, good quality and high resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses are needed in order to meet the demand for more food arising from the rapid human population growth and concurrent decrease in arable land. Improvement of rice quality has now b...

An ancient genome duplication (PPP1) that predates divergence of the cereals has recently been recognized. We report here another potentially older large-scale duplication (PPP2) event that predates monocot-dicot divergence in the genome of rice (Oryza sativa L.), as inferred from the age distribution of pairs of duplicate genes based on recent genome data for rice. Our results suggest that pal...