In 1962, Maurice Wilkins, Francis Crick, and James Watson received the Nobel Prize, but it was Rosalind Franklin's data and photographs of DNA that led to their discovery. Brenda Maddox tells a powerful story of a remarkably single-minded, forthright, and tempestuous young woman who, at the age of fifteen, decided she was going to be a scientist, but who was airbrushed out of the greatest scientific discovery of the twentieth century.

This new third edition updates a best-selling encyclopedia. It includes about 56% more words than the 1,392-page second edition of 2003. The number of illustrations increased to almost 2,000 and their quality has improved by design and four colors. It includes approximately 1,800 current databases and web servers. This encyclopedia covers the basics and the latest in genomics, proteomics, genetic engineering, small RNAs, transcription factories, chromosome territories, stem cells, genetic networks, epigenetics, prions, hereditary diseases, and patents. Similar integrated information is not available in textbooks or on the Internet.

Metagenomics has taken off as one of the major cutting-edge fields of research. The field has broad implications for human health and disease, animal production, and environmental health. Metagenomics has opened up a wealth of data, tools, technologies and applications that allow us to access the majority of organisms that we still cannot access in pure culture (an estimated 99% of microbial life). Numerous research groups are developing tools, approaches and applications to deal with this new field, as larger data sets from environments including the human body, the oceans and soils are being generated. See for example the human microbiome initiative (HMP; http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/hmp/) which has become a world-wide effort, and the Global Ocean Sampling (GOS) surveys; http://www.jcvi.org/cms/research/projects/gos/overview/). The number of publications as measured through PubMed that are focused on metagenomics continues to increase. The field of metagenomics continues to evolve with large common datasets available to the scientific community. A concerted effort is needed to collate all this information in a centralized place. By having all the information in an Encyclopedia form, we have an opportunity to gather seminal contributions from the leaders in the field, and at the same time provide this information to a significant number of junior and senior scientists. It is anticipated that the Encyclopedia will also be used by many other groups including, clinicians, undergraduate and graduate level students, as well as ethical and legal groups associated with or interested in the issues surrounding metagenome science.

Nature Encyclopedia of the Human Genome is the only reference resource devoted entirely to the scientific basis and genetics and genomics research and the complex commercial, philosophical, and ethical questions that arise from it. It presents a comprehensive and rigorously detailed overview of current genome science and its groundbreaking applications, examining the many topics that surround the field from the differing perspectives of history, philosophy, ethics, law, medicine, public health, and industry. Core areas covered include: structural genomics, functional genomics, chromosome structure and function, evolution and comparative genomics, genome mapping and sequencing, genes and disease, behavioural and psychiatric genetics, mathematical and population genetics, proteomics, bioinformatics, ethical, legal and social issues and biographies or key figures.

There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers.

From the author of the acclaimed The Epigenetics Revolution (‘A book that would have had Darwin swooning’ – Guardian) comes another thrilling exploration of the cutting edge of human science. For decades after the structure of DNA was identified, scientists focused purely on genes, the regions of the genome that contain codes for the production of proteins. Other regions – 98% of the human genome – were dismissed as ‘junk’. But in recent years researchers have discovered that variations in this ‘junk’ DNA underlie many previously intractable diseases, and they can now generate new approaches to tackling them. Nessa Carey explores, for the first time for a general audience, the incredible story behind a controversy that has generated unusually vituperative public exchanges between scientists. She shows how junk DNA plays an important role in areas as diverse as genetic diseases, viral infections, sex determination in mammals, human biological complexity, disease treatments, even evolution itself – and reveals how we are only now truly unlocking its secrets, more than half a century after Crick and Watson won their Nobel prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1962.