James and the Giant Corn Rotating Header Image

Posts Tagged ‘genome’

The Peach Genome Is Out

Here. I had no idea anyone was even considering sequencing the peach genome until I heard a single off-hand comment at the maize meeting last month, and all of the sudden here it is. And in better shape in its first release than some genomes are even after they’re published. This is a pre-publication release, [...]

Genome Sequencing vs Genetic Mapping

There was a recent paper in Science about the mapping of the Artemisia annua genome. I’ve seen several people interpret this as another genome sequence. It’s hard to blame anyone for this confusion given headlines like “Scientists map the maize genome!” to describe the sequencing of the maize genome. So what’s the difference between a sequenced genome and a mapped genome? I’m glad you asked!

The Newly Published Soybean Genome and Fractionation

Here’s the key statistic: The maize genome paper estimated that roughly a quarter of maize genes are currently retained as duplicate pairs from maize’s whole genome duplication, while the soybean paper estimates just over half of soybean genes are similarly retained after soybean’s (apparently slightly older) duplication. <– had it buried at the end of [...]

Strawberry Genome Sequenced (Correction included)

After already needing to correct this post, I must now invalidate the whole thing. Seems I’ve been taken in by a premature press release that was turned into reliable sounding articles on news sites and was then picked up by blogs like mine that took the those sites to be credible sources. It’s a big [...]

Why I’m so Excited About the Banana Genome

It looks like this time the banana genome really will be sequenced! The justification for sequencing is the combination of the vital importance of bananas as a source of food in the tropics and their lack of crop breeds since most bananas are sterile and only propagated vegetatively. Banana will be the first non-grass monocot sequenced, which is also awesome for me as a grass genomicist because the genome of the banana will be the new window into what the genome of the ancestor of all grasses might have looked like! But click through to read more!

The Cost of the Turkey Genome

Just to give you a sense of how fast technology is advancing: Sequencing the maize genome took four years and 30 million dollars. Today Virginia Tech announced the University of Minnesota and themselves had received a $908,000 grant to sequence the Turkey genome in two years. I don’t know how big or complex the turkey [...]

Of course plants are more genetically complex!

Let’s remember back to a time before the human genome project published it’s first draft assembly in 2001. The genome of C. elegans a tiny nematode had already been published with ~20,000 genes. The C. elegans genome is one 1/30 the size of the human genome and the tiny worms are so small that biologists [...]

Bloggers on the Maize Genome

Update: PolITiGenomics just posted a piece on the corn genome as well. You know I could keep talking about the maize genome all day (and I may very well do just that), but what are other bloggers saying about the most complicated plant genome ever published, of second most important single species for feeding people [...]

Corn Genome

So I didn’t think this could be publically mentioned until tomorrow, but the finalized corn genome has come out. If Wash U can mention it, so can I. Expect tomorrow to be a day of corn here at Jamesandthegiantcorn (though it would have been more fun if I could had started the day of corn before this news was publically announced.)

Lots of corn. And genomics… consider yourselves forwarned!