A newly designed computational method has proven its usefulness in counting copies of duplicated genome sequences and in doing initial assessments of their contents, according to a study to be published Aug. 30 in Nature Genetics. The number of copies of particular DNA segments can differ from one person to the next.

Scientists have called it "junk DNA." They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions. Why would nature force the genome to carry so much excess baggage?

Modern genotyping technologies offer new opportunities to explore how genes influence health and disease, but also present the challenge of analyzing huge amounts of genetic and clinical data.

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, and the 454 Life Sciences Corporation, in Branford, Connecticut, will announce on 12 February during the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and at a simultaneous European press briefing that they have completed a first draft version of the Neandertal genome.

A study looking at the entire human genome has identified new genes that appear to be involved in making some children more susceptible to Kawasaki disease, according to a new international study published January 9 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

While examining patterns of DNA modification in lung cancer, a team of international researchers has discovered what they say is a surprising new mechanism. They say that "silencing" of a single gene in lung cancer led to a general impairment in genome-wide changes in cells, contributing to cancer development and progression.

Researchers have carried out the largest study of differences between human and chimpanzee genomes, identifying regions that have been duplicated or lost during evolution of the two lineages. The study, published in Genome Research, is the first to compare many human and chimpanzee genomes in the same fashion.

The mysteries of the human genome are slowly being revealed – but the more we uncover the more complicated the picture becomes. This was one key message to emerge from the European Science Foundation's 3rd Functional Genomics Conference held in Innsbruck, Austria, on 1-4 October.

Researchers have decoded the genome of a malaria parasite that has a host range from monkeys to man. Identified originally in monkeys, the parasite was first reported in a human infection just over 40 years ago.

Our genome contains many genes encoding proteins that are similar to those of other organisms, suggesting evolutionary relationships; however, protein-coding genes account for only a small fraction the genome, and there are many other DNA sequences that are conserved across species.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, together with American colleagues, have decoded the genome of the Pristionchus pacificus nematode, thereby gaining insight into the evolution of parasitism.

In the late 19th century Gregor Mendel used peas to show that one copy of a gene (allele) is inherited from the mother and one from the father. In the progeny, the inherited genes are expressed at the right time and in the right place, but until recently, it was thought that although gene products could be modified during the life of the organism, the genes themselves were unchanged, except for random mutation.