Tag Archives: genomics
On the trail of the elusive Solenodon genome. Q&A with Taras Oleksyk
Scott Edmunds - March 19, 2018
Researchers have sequenced the venomous Solenodon, the last survivor of a branch of mammals that appeared at the time of the dinosaurs. Here we give some behind the scenes insight with some of the authors of this prize winning project, and include a Q&A with lead author Taras Oleksyk. Our latest paper presents a draft […]
Apply for GigaScience Scholarships at ConGen 2018
Hans Zauner - March 14, 2018
ConGen (Recent Advances in Conservation Genetics), an international course taught by leading experts in the field, is a fantastic opportunity to learn how the latest genomic and genetic methods contribute to conservation science. Protecting endangered species also means we have to know as much as possible about them. ConGen will bring you up to speed […]
A Christmas Gift To You From GigaScience. Scientists have Unwrapped the Reindeer Genome.
Scott Edmunds - December 12, 2017
A New High-Quality Reindeer Genome Sequence Provides Resources for Studying Evolution, Domestication, and Adaptation to Arctic Climate. But not the secrets of Christmas. Ewan Birney has previously blogged on the Genome Days of Christmas, but today the full-text version of a particularly Christmassy species has just been published to add to that list. Coming so […]
And the winner is? Our #ICG12 prize track on GigaTV
Scott Edmunds - November 27, 2017
Last month was the 7th consecutive year we’ve attended our co-publisher BGI’s annual ICG (International Conference on Genomics) gathering in Shenzhen. While we’ve assisted in organising a number of fun thematic tracks over the years including ICG-8’s crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and open science session, and ICG-10’s community genomics session, for ICG12 this year we decided to […]
Bringing Wildlife Forensics into the Omics Era. Q&A with Alfred Arulandhu and Martijn Staats
Scott Edmunds - September 12, 2017
Sequencers versus the smugglers. CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), is one of the largest and oldest conservation and sustainable use agreements in existence, and provides a legal framework for protecting endangered plants and animals around the world. There are roughly 35,000 species listed on the three […]
Guest Blog from Huanming Yang on using the human genome for big-data storage
Scott Edmunds - September 7, 2017
With the current annual data creation rate estimated to be in the tens of zettabytes, the flood of information currently being generated in every area of human life is crashing up against limited data storage solutions. However, DNA, which serves as a storage system for biological information, has been proposed as a potential means to […]
Data Intensive Software Publishing & Sailing The Code Ocean. Q&A With Ruibang Luo.
Scott Edmunds - June 27, 2017
GigaScience is always trying to push the boundaries of how we disseminate reproducible research, and to adapt to the challenges of dealing with experiments become more data-intensive. We now showcase a new reproducible research platform we’ve been testing called Code Ocean, and have a Q&A with our Author Ruibang Luo on his experiences using it. […]
Getting the Buzz on Bee Parasites. Author Q&A with Tatsuhiko Kadowaki
Scott Edmunds - February 24, 2017
The decline of global honeybee populations are a major environment concern, because of their vital role in our food systems and pollination of flowering plants. Twenty first century ‘Omics is coming to the rescue, and published in GigaScience this week is an article that presents the genome and proteome of a mahor threat to bee […]
2016: An Eventful Year for GigaScience
Nicole Nogoy - December 13, 2016
This year has been an eventful one, probably too eventful for many. For GigaScience it has been eventful too, although fortunately in a much more positive way than many have experienced. While there are fears of us entering a “post-truth” era, there is more need than ever for our role as promoters of transparency, reproducibility and providers of cold-hard data. We celebrated our birthday with Mickey Mouse, and experienced many other milestones. On the technical front, this year we have brought you better integration with citable and updatable methods, bigger better and broader data types, and much more. In the tradition of end-of-year-introspection, here is a summary of some of our 2016 achievements as we continue to push the boundaries of innovative publishing of all research objects and reproducible research.
Ginkgo genome fills an evolutionary hole
Scott Edmunds - November 25, 2016
New in GigaScience is an article that presents the genome sequence of Ginkgo biloba, the oldest extant tree species. The research was carried out by a team of scientists at BGI, Zheijiang University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who tackled and analyzed an exceptionally large genome, totalling more than 10Gb. Ginkgo is considered by some as a “living fossil”, its form and structure having changed very little in 270 million years. Its unique position in the evolutionary tree of life means the ginkgo genome will provide an extensive resource for studying early events in tree development and evolution.