Jim's genome

catching up with two week's worth of Nature, I spotted James Watson's genome in the current (April 17) issue. No genes for scientific brilliance or misogyny spotted yet, though. I guess the important bit of progress here is that the genome was sequenced in 2 months at a cost of 1 million dollars, two orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than previous efforts, including Craig Venter's genome. However, the assembly of Watson's genome did depend on the human genome sequence being known already, so comparisons with the first sequencing efforts are slightly unfair.

Plus, in the April 10 issue, the important piece of news that Richard Dawkins is going to follow in the footsteps of his wife, Lalla Ward, and appear in Dr Who. Imagine the dialogue: "I'm the doctor." "Delighted to meet you. I'm the Charles Simonyi professor for the public understanding of science."