Yesterday we published the winning paper of the second GigaScience prize, with additional detail and coverage in GigaBlog describing why we and the judging panel found it so novel. This was an impressively case study in reproducibility, reassembling & reannotating around 700 microbial eukaryotic transcriptomes to demonstrate this approach can aid in revealing new biologically relevant findings and missed genes from old data.

*Out today is the winner of our ICG13 Prize, presenting work that can aid in revealing new biologically relevant findings and missed genes from previously generated transcriptome assemblies. Teaching old data new tricks, and maximising every last nugget of information from previously funded research.

**Today in GigaScience we present the genome of the tegu lizard. It is the most complete assembly of any reptile genome so far and will also aid scientists to study other lizards and snakes. ** The tegu has mastered a trick that is highly unusual in the reptile world: it can turn on its own heating system.

This is the Dawning of the Age of Aequatus Our ICG Prize is over now for another year, and we’ll shortly follow up with an announcement on which of the six winners won the $1000 first prize. To help you see how great all the entries were we will introduce and profile some of the winning papers.

Navigating Pangenome’s Labyrinth In the two decades since the first genomes were sequenced, with the exponential growth of new and closely related genomes it has become increasingly difficult to visualise and compare their structure. Particularly with the large diversity and difference in genes within microbial genomes.

Photo: UNSW Sydney The cane toad Rhinella marina is native to Central and South America. But thanks to humans and the sugar cane trade, the species now thrives also in Australia and other places where it doesn’t belong. The invasive species comes with an unpleasant surprise for native Australian predators, such as snakes or freshwater crocodiles: R. marina kills them with its toxic secretions.

I’m a genomicist, get me into here. Today is DNA Day, commemorating the day in 1953 when Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Franklin et al. published their Nature papers on the structure of DNA, as well as the day in 2003 that the completion of the Human Genome Project was declared.

*The CRISPR/Cas9 system has opened new horizons in what can be done with genome editing. Here we present an author Q&A with Alun Yonglun Luo discussing his new paper in GigaScience moving this technology towards epigenome editing and testing its efficacy and accuracy.

ConGen (Recent Advances in Conservation Genetics), an international course taught by leading experts in the field, is a fantastic opportunity to learn how the latest genomic and genetic methods contribute to conservation science. Protecting endangered species also means we have to know as much as possible about them.

The year is almost over and it’s time to review the highlights of GigaScience ’s 2017. “Draft genome of the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus)” Foto: Alexandre Buisse CC-BY-SA 3.0 2017 was as special year for GigaScience : a year of many firsts and we celebrated our 5th birthday! An occasion to look back – and forward, as we did in our anniversary editorial.