Genome of the marsupial Monodelphis domestica reveals innovation in non-coding sequences

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7141/full/nature05805.html

Summary
Marsupials are one of three major groups of mammals, and are the closest group to humans. Scientists have been studying genome alignment in possums, humans, and other animals. Genomes are a full set of chromosomes, or all the inheritable traits of an organism. They've noticed that genomes are less likely to align if they are farther away than 1 substitution per site (sps). For example, our genomes are more likely to align with a possum's genomes, because theirs are about 1 sps away, than a chicken's genomes, which are 1.7 sps away.
Comparing our genomes to that of a possum shows just how similar our DNA really is. "Of protein-coding sequences conserved among eutherians (i.e. humans), only ~1% seems to be absent in opossum."

Response

I had known that scientists were able to compare our DNA to that of the DNA of others in God's creation, but I really didn't know just how far they could go. That they can narrow down the distance needed for alignment to occur, blows my mind. On the Evolutionist side, now scientists can try to determine the common ancestor of the different types of possums and marsupials. From there, they can try to determine the common ancestor they believe existed among marsupials, monotremes, and eutherian mammals.