Hibernation and Such

Don't expect much from me in terms of substantial posting. I'm getting prepared for the SMBE meeting, and devoting most of my time to finishing up some data analysis and putting together my talk. If you want to read about some evolutionary genetics research, here are some links:

  • Check out this report on genome duplications in angiosperms from Claude dePamphilis's lab (Indian Cowboy has more here).
  • I'm pretty interested in copy number variation, so I definitely need to read this article comparing copy number polymorphisms in humans and chimps (news release here). From the snippets I've looked at it appears that many of the variants are shared in humans and chimps. I'm not sure if they're shared ancestral alleles or homoplasies.
  • Speaking of variation in the human genome, the Human Variome Project is attempting to build a database of human SNPs and the phenotypes with which they've been associated. They're also out to prove that you can attach the suffix -ome to just about anything to make it sound revolutionary (via Snowdeal).

That's all for now. I hope to have an answer up soon to Razib's question (care of SEED): Will the "human" race be around in 100 years? Don't expect it to be very introspective.

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