The Joint Genome Institute at the Energy Department has started what it calls a “genomic encyclopedia,” a collection of genomes from diverse microbes. Using an evolutionary approach that differs in strategy from how scientists originally chose organisms for sequencing, researchers hope to discover many new kinds of genes. According the New York Times, “the genomic… [Read More]

The Earth is estimated to have about a nonillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) microbes in, on, around, and under it, comprised of an unknown but very large number of distinct species. Despite the widespread availability of microbial genome data—close to 2,000 microbes have been and are being decoded to date—a vast unknown realm awaits scientists intent on exploring… [Read More]

Think of phylogenetic diversity as all of the separate branches growing from the main “trunk” of the Tree of Life.  “Most of these separate branches within the bacteria and archaea have not yet been sampled in regard to genome sequencing” said Eisen. To expand the genomic sampling of bacterial and microbial diversity, Eisen and others… [Read More]

Genome scientists from the U.S. and Germany have assembled the first pages of a comprehensive encyclopedia of genomes of all the microbes on Earth. The results, published Dec. 24 in the journal Nature, will help biologists find new genes and fill out the branches of the “Tree of Life.”…. The project was funded primarily by… [Read More]