MetaSUB: Creating a World-Wide ‘DNA Map’ of Microbiomes
Have you ever wondered what may be lurking on the handrails and turnstiles and all the surfaces you touch, on your daily commute to work? Well now we may find out. On the 21st June 2016 the International MetaSUB Consortium launched the first Global City Sampling Day (CSD). Mass-transit systems around the world, for example […]
Mother’s Negligence Suit Against Quest’s Athena Could Broadly Impact Genetic Testing Labs
On 5th January 2008, a two-year old boy called Christian Millare had a severe seizure and died. Eight years later his mother Amy Williams, has filed a lawsuit in the fifth judicial court in Richland County, South Carolina. Williams alleges that because Athena Diagnostics (a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics – one of the largest reference […]
The Fight to Save Our Ash Trees
We have 157,000 hectares of ash woodland in the UK, together with approximately 12 million ash trees outside the woodlands in gardens, parklands and along roadsides. These ash trees are associated with and support 1,000 different species, including 12 species of bird, 55 species of mammals and 239 species of invertebrates. But ash trees are […]
Kakapo 125: Sequencing the Genomes of an Entire Species
New Zealand has been separate from other land masses for approximately 80 million years. This geographic isolation has allowed for millions of years of natural selection, largely in the absence of predatory mammals. The result has been the evolution of some of the worlds most unique and unusual species. The Kakapo is one of these […]