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.

More like this

There are some papers out on the genome of the domestic cow out right now. ScienceNews has an overview: Two competing research teams have cataloged the "essence of bovinity" found in the DNA of cattle, but not without disagreement on some essential points. Reporting online April 23 in Science and…
A few days ago I pointed to a paper which suggests the possible utility of looking at selection on standing genetic variation on quantitative traits to get a sense of the role of adaptation in the human genome. We humans like to think we're a complex species, so I see no a priori reason why our…
This past summer, Matt Hahn presented a talk at the Society for Molecular Biology Evolution meeting and Evolution 2006 entitled "The 17% Solution: Gene Family Divergence Between Human And Chimpanzee". The basic premise was that, even though humans and chimps are ~99% identical at the DNA sequence…
John Hawks has an interesting post on what it means to be human in which he argues that our "human-ness" (humanity?) is our shared evolutionary history. I like it. But Hawks also writes the following: It is our history that connects us to our distant relatives, not our genes. Even with a close…