Genomics is a powerful technology that helps us understand the Tree of Life. Biodiversity Genomics 2021 was a virtual conference that took place on 27 ^th September-1st October 2021 that demonstrated how genomics can inform conservation and food security, and can additionally help us understand evolutionary novelties such as symbiosis.

Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference is an annual gathering for scientists from bioinformatics, molecular biology, and data science and provides a multidisciplinary environment for disseminating recent research and development in computational biology.

This week in GigaScience we published the genome of the mediterranean cone snail, Lautoconus ventricosus . Cone snails produce a wide variety of powerful toxins and the new chromosome-scale genome assembly opens the door for detailed investigations of their diversity and evolution. Cone snails are beloved by collectors for their often beautiful shells, but they are infamous because of their powerful venom.

The dizzying complexity of biological systems necessitates an abundance of tools that allow researchers to understand the deluge of sequence, structural, and systems-level data that is being generated in cell, molecular, and developmental biology.

This week in GigaScience we published research revealing a previously hidden diversity of symbiotic bacteria from the genus Rickettsia , spanning a wide range of arthropod hosts. Using accidentally amplified sequence data from a barcoding database as a starting point, the results will help to better understand the co-evolution of these intimate symbioses.

Today is a big day for the genomics of egg-laying animals, with the coordinated publication of three papers on animal sex chromosome evolution and diversity in GigaScience , Nature , and Genome Research by the Qi Zhou lab at Zhejiang University.

Cell Bio 2020 Virtual – the online ASCB|EMBO Meeting – took place on 2-16 December 2020 and offered many invaluable insights on the structural and evolutionary basis of biological systems.

With the recent launch of our new GigaByte journal you may have noticed some interesting genome datasets being published, including the banjo frog, common dragonet fish, and extremely rare Nyssa yunnanensis tree. Joining these species on the genomics tree of life this month is a small mouse-like marsupial called the brown antechinus.

Bats are mammals like no other – airborne, mostly nocturnal, often hidden away in caves, capable of using echolocation for in-flight navigation. No two bat species are alike, however. Their diversity of morphology, life styles and feeding habits is staggering. New bat genomics research published today in GigaScience explores