The Human Genome Project is not the only show in town: other creatures too
are being reduced to a jumble of letters. Legions of microbes have been
sequenced already鈥攕ee www.tigr.org/tdb/mdb/mdb.html. Ongoing microbe
projects are also listed here.
But what about the animals? Well, at the veterinary school of the
University of California, Davis, they鈥檙e mapping the feline genome. And if you
like, you can help them out by sending them a sample from your own cat.
Instructions on how Kitty and your vet can help catkind are at
www.cfainc.org/exhibitors/feline-genome-project.html.
Another pet that has wandered haplessly into the sights of the gene hunter
is the dog. So once you鈥檝e printed off the 3 billion base pairs that make up our
genetic code, you can compare them with Fido鈥檚 to see what you鈥檝e got in common.
The homepage of the Dog Genome Project is at
http://mendel.berkeley.edu/dog.html.
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At the Parisian National Institute for Agricultural Research, they鈥檙e
working on more heavyweight creatures. Three tasteful cancan-dancing goats
introduce the goat genome page at
http://locus.jouy. inra.fr/cgibin/lgbc/mapping/common/intro2.pl?BASE=goat,
where you can find out all you ever wanted to know about all 58 caprine varieties.
And if you get hungry researching, there鈥檚 even a link to some handy French tips on
how to cook a goat.
If you鈥檙e still in need of a break from the science of genomics, it鈥檚 just
a quick hop from the goat genome page to a gallery of paintings 鈥渋nspired by
animal genome mapping鈥�, by Japanese artist Atsuko Hotta. That鈥檚 at
http://locus.jouy.inra. fr/cgi-bin/lgbc/mapping/common/art_for_dbs.pl.
And if you find your interest stirred by animal genomes, you can air your
thoughts and voice your queries on the animal gene mappers鈥� discussion group at
www.genome.iastate.edu/community/discuss.html.