Rationalist rap: “Off That” by Baba Brinkman
OK, a bit off topic for this blog, but I just have to share this latest song from rationalist rap artist, Baba Brinkman (and video from Mr Simmonds). HD version here. Lyrics available here. MP3 available here. More Geek Pop available here.
Amerithrax case closed thanks to forensic genomics (and lots of other leg work)
I have just come across this report from the US Department of Justice, which documents all the evidence in the Amerithrax case and explains why they are closing the case. Anyone interested in bacterial pathogenomics should read the report, not just because success in solving the crime depended on forensic use of genome sequencing, but [...]
Illumina still dominate sequencing market: ABI and 454 Jockey for 2nd Place
Yesterday, we launched a new version of the high-throughput sequencing map. I promised when it launched that when sufficient updates were received we would release instrument statistics. We have now received 214 updates from the community – thank you so much! So, without further ado, check out the statistics tables! Some bottom-line numbers: there are [...]
Experiencing suboptimal 454 runs and slow Roche deliveries? You are not alone!
We just had a suboptimal run on our 454 intrument in which the modal read length was closer to 200 bp than 400 bp. We are relative newcomers to the game, so our first thoughts were that we had done something wrong. But after racking our brains, we couldn’t think of anything, so we presented [...]
A triumph for Old World genomics
This week’s Nature sees publication of a metagenomics survey of the human gut microbiome that is astonishing in scale. Nearly 600 gigabase pairs of raw data from stool samples from 33 Europeans processed to give over three million protein-coding genes! This is around 200 times larger than the most recent comparable study! Also remarkable is [...]