Gorillas, Watermelons and Sperm: The Greatest Genomes Sequenced In 2012

Scientists peered into the genetic codes of some of the world's most interesting plants and animals.
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In the 10 years since the complete human genome was published, molecular biologists have been hard at work unraveling the genomic codes of multitudes of life forms. What stands out, time and again, is how much all life shares in common, and how complex everything is. Did you know the domesticated watermelon has about as many genes as you do?

In 2012, genome researchers sequenced the DNA of an unborn human baby, the western lowland gorilla, fruits and grains, and livestock.

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The International Barley Genome Sequencing Consortium (17 October 2012, Nature)
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Dr. Wolfgang Moroder/Wikimedia
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Don Hamerman/Nature
 
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Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning freelance journalist who writes about astronomy, zoonoses and everything in between. She is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and her work regularly appears in Popular Science, New Scientist, FiveThirtyEight, Wired, and many other publications for adults and kids. Rebecca grew up in Colorado, a mile closer to space, and now lives in St. Louis, near the confluence of the continent's two mightiest rivers.