*Series Editors: Jue Ruan (Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) and Fritz J Sedlazeck (Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine) *   While the first draft of the Human Genome was announced back in June 2000 and declared complete in April 2003, it took 20 years for the publication of the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome in March 2022.

A new GigaScience article presents rich multi-dimensional data for one Alpine dingo named Cooinda . The high-quality genome sequence, other molecular biology data, and magnetic resonance imaging of brain tissue will serve as a point of reference for exploring the evolutionary history of dingoes.

Researchers have completed and released a chromosome-scale genome sequence of the Aldabra giant tortoise providing a much needed genetic resource for rescue efforts . The Aldabra giant tortoise is one of only two giant tortoise species left in the world, and it is currently on the threatened list. Conservation efforts are underway, but more and better tools to improve the chance of long-term success are greatly needed.

The h-index is a metric that was invented to summarise the publication output and impact of researchers. In a new GigaScience article, authors from the University of New South Wales (Australia) adopt the controversial metric for a completely different purpose: to explore systematic differences in research interest ( taxonomic bias ), using mammals as an example.

GigaScience Presses new GigaByte Journal was launched with the goal of speeding up the dissemination of science, publishing at the speed of research . Beyond speeding up the research process by incentivizing the early release of datasets and software/computational workflows by focusing on short descriptions of these two article types (called Data Release and Technical Release), we’ve also tried to greatly speed up the normally

This week in GigaScience we published the genome of the mediterranean cone snail, Lautoconus ventricosus . Cone snails produce a wide variety of powerful toxins and the new chromosome-scale genome assembly opens the door for detailed investigations of their diversity and evolution. Cone snails are beloved by collectors for their often beautiful shells, but they are infamous because of their powerful venom.

The SAMtools suite of tools for manipulating sequencing data one of the most ubiquitous tools in bioinformatics, as the “glue” holding together much of bioinformatics we see it used in pretty much every genomics pipeline we are submitted.

The International Ukraine Genetic Diversity Project finds a quarter of the genetic variation in Europe, dramatically increasing information on population diversity and medical genetic variation. Today, the largest study of genetic diversity in Ukraine was published in GigaScience . The project was an international effort, bringing together researchers in Ukraine, the US and China and is the first fruits of this collaboration to

Looking back at this unusual COVID-dominated year, we are happy to report that GigaScience not only kept going under difficult circumstances, publishing outstanding examples of Big Data science and introducing innovations in the review process.

The first comprehensive mobile genome analysis application, iGenomics, is now available for download and use on an iOS smartphone . By pairing an smartphone with a handheld DNA sequencer, users will be able to create a mobile genetics laboratory, reminiscent of the Star Trek’s “tricorder”. Just published is an article presenting  iGenomics, the first DNA sequencing toolkit that can run on a smartphone.