Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The Poet Bland and Sixteen Specimen Poems

The only appeal that needs to be made for the poet, Henry Meade Bland, is that he deserves to be better known. The shadow of obscurity has fallen upon a number of our American regional poets and their places in the sun usurped by practitioners of the more currently popular forms of literature. When interest in poetry some day revives, it will be useful to have a record of the poets who responded to their surroundings because of an inward urge to sing. Some of the truly indigenous literature of our own and earlier times is to be found in regional poetry. Bland, it can be stated with assurance, was dedicated to his native region, California, and his poetry is indigenous thereto. No extended biographical account of the poet Bland has appeared in the years since his death in 1931. A short sketch or two may be found in journalistic sources, the Overland Monthly, to specify one, and from the hand of the poet himself we are provided with a few hundred words of autobiography. The present short biographical essay was undertaken to supply this lack. The systematic preservation of the poet\u27s letters, notes, and papers by Mrs. Gwendolen Penniman of San Jose, California, materially simplified the task of preparing the essay, and numerous interviews with surviving friends of the poet, particularly Mr. Roland Eberhart, provided authentic echoes from the life of a noble and gifted man

Joaquin Miller: Literary frontiersman

Joaquin Miller, Western poet and frontiersman, was born in Liberty, Union County, Indiana, on March 10, 1839. Named Cincinnatus Hiner Miller by his parents, he was called Nat or Hiner by his intimates up to the time he adopted the pen name Joaquin. Joaquin Miller\u27s rank as an American poet is not high. His poetry lacks the depth and felicity of expression essential to great poetry. But he is interesting as an example of the literary fecundity of the nineteenth century in America. Relatively untutored, he attained a mastery of certain of the forms of poetry, particularly iambic tetrameter, and exploited with great concentration if not always with literary success, the materials of the Far Western frontier. Joaquin Miller is much indebted to Byron for his poetic temperament and for some of his poetic forms. Like Byron he assumes the role of the proud rebel and wages war on a convention-bound world. At one period, Miller attempted to follow the subtle measures of Swinburne but his failure to master these forms must have been apparent even to himself. Something of the poetic style of Browning creeps into occasional of his poems. But despite these deferences to European, particularly English, models, Miller remains himself. The cardinal ideas that animate Miller\u27s philosophy are not especially significant. He believes in liberty, freedom of conscience, and in democracy. He fights against intolerance and oppression. But we miss in Miller the unified and profound philosophy of what critics have come to call the major poets. Miller\u27s use of poetic language is not unusual. His phrasing is essentially conventional and his diction, though occasionally but not too often touched by originality and elevation, is for the most part in conformity with the poetic diction of the Victorians. Miller at his best is a bold and vigorous painter of scenes of the Western frontier. His word pictures in Columbus, With Walker in Nicaragua, and Kit Carson\u27s Ride are vivid and enduring. (Abstract shortened by UMI.