Chris Hunter - February 6, 2023
After 2 cancellations due to the pandemic, the Plant and Animal Genomes conference returned to its in-person format in January with its 30th edition. A number of the talks focused on the effects of climate change either on biodiversity or crop development. It seems only fitting then, that the weather provided a suitable demonstration with […]
Scott Edmunds - June 15, 2021
We have an update on the Update article, GigaByte’s new article type to speed up the sharing and communication of science through allowing publication of data and software versions that are immediately useful to the community.
Scott Edmunds - March 1, 2020
As publishers of a lot of plant and animal genomes, the biggest conference for this research community is the appropriately named Plant and Animal Genome Conference (PAG). We’ve attended a number of these giant meetings in their San Diego base, and in recent years they have been branching out to host satellites in Asia (PAG […]
Scott Edmunds - October 24, 2019
Lessons learned in the evolution of large-scale data sharing New studies out today elucidate the framework for 1 billion years of green plant evolution. The work are the results of nearly a decades work from an international consortium of nearly 200 plant researchers generating gene sequences from more than 1100 plant species. Here and in […]
Chris Armit - July 3, 2019
Regular readers will know GigaScience has published a lot of plant and animal genomes, and the biggest conference for this research community is the appropriately named Plant & Animal Genome Conference (PAG). We’ve attended a number of these giant meetings at their San Diego base, and in recent years they have been branching out to […]
Scott Edmunds - January 28, 2019
Our Biggest Dataset Yet. Oh, Ruili? A new Data Note provides genome sequencing data that effectively triples the number of plant species with available genome data. This mammoth amount of work comes on the back of the growing efforts of the scientific community to sequence more plant genomes to aid in understanding their complex evolution […]
Scott Edmunds - December 7, 2018
Pressing Challenges for the Global Research Community Continuous growth of the world population is expected to double the worldwide demand for food by 2050. Eighty-eight percent of countries currently face a serious burden of malnutrition, especially in Africa and South-East Asia. To diversify and stabilize global food supply, enhance agricultural productivity and tackle malnutrition, greater […]
Nicole Nogoy - July 17, 2018
With the upcoming 5th International Plant Phenotyping Symposium (IPPS) set to take place Oct 2-5, in Adelaide, Australia, we look at how the plant phenotyping community has progressed over the last decade and how we can potentially address the issues surrounding data sharing, re-use, and reproducible research. As we live in an increasingly data-driven era, […]
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.
Scott Edmunds - June 28, 2016
Teams of scientists from Spain have published the first complete genome of the olive tree. The specimen sequenced is of the Spanish Farga variety, and is over 1,200 years old. This work will facilitate genetic improvement for production of olives and olive oil, two key products in the Mediterranean economy and diet.