Oat is among the top ten cereal crop species in terms of global production. It can adapt to different climates. Farmers grow it successfully even in harsh environments where other crops such as rice and corn fail. However, not all oat plants are the same. Based on their grains, two major oat varieties can easily be distinguished: Grains of “hulled oat” are covered in a non-edible husk.

Field notes of early-20th century entomologist Johanna Bonne-Wepster have been turned into crucial new public health data through digitization, filling data gaps and continuing her legacy in forming Dutch tropical medicine research. Natural history collections contain huge amounts of information on diversity, distribution and ecology of a variety of species; however, much of this valuable information is effectively lost

This week in GigaScience , Hasindu Gamaarachchi and colleagues published a paper on their HARU solution for selective sequencing, to be used alongside the handheld (“tricorder” like) Nanopore MinION device . With the MinION, it is possible to kick out all non-target DNA strands before they are processed through the device’s pores, thus selectively sequencing specific target regions of the genome.

Morpho butterflies are emblematic species of the Amazonian rainforest known for their metallic shades of blue and green. Despite their conspicuous looks and fascinating biology, large-scale genome sequencing efforts have somewhat neglected them – until now.

*Series Editors: Jue Ruan (Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) and Fritz J Sedlazeck (Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine) *   While the first draft of the Human Genome was announced back in June 2000 and declared complete in April 2003, it took 20 years for the publication of the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome in March 2022.

Gothenburg, Sweden played host to the Research Data Alliance (RDA) RDA20 plenary from March 20th to 24th 2023. A hybrid event with most sessions recorded and made available via the Whova app for registered participants. Recordings will be made available on Monday, 1 May 2023 to the wider community.

A new GigaScience article presents rich multi-dimensional data for one Alpine dingo named Cooinda . The high-quality genome sequence, other molecular biology data, and magnetic resonance imaging of brain tissue will serve as a point of reference for exploring the evolutionary history of dingoes.

At GigaScience we see more and more of our published papers use computational workflows, as they provides researchers easy access to high-quality analysis methods without the requirement of computational expertise. However, systems are needed to enable the sharing of these workflows in a reusable form.

GigaScience Press is pleased to announce GigaByte journal is now indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central (PMC) databases run by the US National Library of Medicine. PubMed being a searchable database of biomedical citations and abstracts, and PMC being a free digital archive of the full-text of Open Access articles.

After 2 cancellations due to the pandemic, the Plant and Animal Genomes conference returned to its in-person format in January with its 30th edition. A number of the talks focused on the effects of climate change either on biodiversity or crop development. It seems only fitting then, that the weather provided a suitable demonstration with California experiencing one of the longest periods of sustained rainfall in many years.