This week we published a new, high-quality genome sequence of one of Australia’s most iconic animals, the short beaked echidna. The almost gapless genome sequence of this egg-laying mammal helps researchers to track genomic reshuffling events that gave rise to a perplexing  sex determination system. At first glance they may be mistaken for a weird-looking hedgehog.

Introduction The Immunological Challenge Let’s face it, the immune system is a bit of a drama queen (or king, depending on the situation). It’s constantly patrolling our bodies, acting as a vigilant security force , looking for trouble (like invading pathogens, damaged cells, or rogue cancer cells). When it finds something suspicious, it initiates a complex and tightly regulated

It’s December again, and our teams of editors and curators are busy with the many submissions we receive at this time of year.

This week in GigaScience we published a new genomic analysis of the endangered Oriental Stork, bringing good news: The population’s genetic health is still surprisingly strong, with high genetic diversity and low levels of inbreeding. Climate change, forest wildfires, hunting and the expansion of agriculture, industry and other human activities threaten the Oriental Stork ( Ciconia boyciana ), which is listed as

Reaching new highs in Cannabis sativa Omics There is a growing interest in Cannabis (Cannabis sativa) research, and recent changes in regulations have spurred numerous genomic studies of this once-prohibited plant. Industrial hemp and medical marijuana are now global multibillion-dollar industries, but due to its widespread prohibition in the 20th and early 21st century it […]

The post Getting deep into the weeds of Cannabis genomics: Join our first Cassyni Seminar appeared first on GigaBlog.

An excerpt from my newly-defended PhD dissertation.

GigaScience Press is helping CitizenScience.Asia mobilise Citizen Scientists Across Asia for a groundbreaking biodiversity initiative from October 18 to 27 2024. Regular readers will have seen our efforts to promote and amplify citizen science projects, citizen science being a key driver of “Open Engagement of Societal Actors”, which was highlighted by UNESCO as one of the four fundamental pillars of Open Science (and flagged

MicroCT imaging is an exceptional tool for 3D visualisation. A new Data Note published in GigaScience reports on a unique, high-quality series of MicroCT images that covers the lifespan of an amphibian from tadpole to froglet to mature adult frog.

Plant phenotyping – the science of gathering precise information and measurements on plants – has seen massive improvements recently, and the combination of sensor technology and AI methods will continue to change the way crops are assessed and improved. A new article in GigaScience demonstrates where this is going: Jonas Bömer and colleagues at the Institute of Sugar Beet Research (Göttingen) used

Today we publish a new Data Release presenting a dataset of jellyfish sightings collected by citizen scientists from 2021 through 2023 within Hong Kong waters. This is the first example where our curation team have worked with a Citizen Science project to share their observations in the GBIF biodiversity database.