Human Genome Sequencing Completed

Arthur Dent '99 writes "According to this article at Reuters, the last chromosome in the human genome has finally been sequenced, taking 150 British and American scientists 10 years to complete. The sequenced chromosome, Chromosome 1, is the largest chromosome, with nearly twice as many genes as the average chromosome, making up eight percent of the human genetic code. The Human Genome Project has published the sequence online in the journal Nature, according to the article. It contains 3,141 genes (over 1,000 of them newly discovered), and 4,500 new SNPs -- single nucleotide polymorphisms -- which are the variations in human DNA that make people unique."

Comments

First Chromosome

[LiquidCoooled]

I won't bore you with the details, but theres lots of GATCAATGAGGTGGACACCAGAGGCGGGGACTTGTAAATAACACTGGGC type things here

Re:I'd like fries with that

[Daniel Dvorkin]

You're just wrong about this. 20/10 means you can resolve something 20 feet away twice as well as the average person; similarly, 20/40 means you can resolve something 20 feet away half as well as the average person. But 20/10 does not mean your eye is misshapen or your sense of perspective is off. It simply means you have better distance vision than average. Now, you may also be "farsighted" -- i.e., have trouble resolving things close up -- but the two are basically independent of each other.

20/20 isn't "perfect," BTW. Human vision is very good compared to that of most animals, but it's laughably bad compared to that of, e.g., birds of prey. I guarantee you an eagle can see better than you can whether it's spotting a rabbit from a few hundred feet in the air, or staring that same rabbit in the face right before dinnertime. ;)