For reasons that are not totally understood, this methylation prevents the gene's information from being expressed, or transcribed into RNA and proteins, the basic building blocks of the body.
Given that there is a living to be made at night, and given that alternative daytime trades are thoroughly occupied, natural selection has favoured bats that make a go of the night-hunting trade.
This restraint largely explains her lack of popular success during her lifetime, even if her talent did not go completely unrecognized by her eighteenth-century French contemporaries.
The increased pressures of expanding populations have led to the removal of woody plants, so that many cities and towns are surrounded by large areas completely lacking in trees and shrubs.