Natural abortions are typically called miscarriages. Medically-induced abortions, which can be completed with surgery or with hormone drugs, are performed because the foetus is unwanted, deformed, not likely to live, or endangers the mother's life or health.
The dog genome project is a collaborative study involving scientists at the University of California, The University of Oregon, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center aimed at producing a map of all of the chromosomes in dogs, which can be used to map the genes causing disease and those genes controlling morphology and behavior.
For the first time researchers have a map that covers 90 percent of the dog genome and has landmarks on every chromosome. This means that hunting for genes in the dog can be done with more precision because the regions containing genes of interest will be smaller.