Tag Archives: China

October issue cover: What’s going on here?

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Oct

{credit}Convergent cabbages by Keyong Chang{/credit}

For all of October, we at Nature Genetics have been admiring the lovely cabbages on our cover. The image, created by photographer Keyong Chang, was contributed by the authors of the study on page 1218 of the issue.

But what is the story behind these pretty green cabbages?

Xiaowu Wang, corresponding author of the study, gave us a behind-the-scenes look at the process that led to the picture on our cover.

The image conveys the main idea of the study, namely that Brassica oleracea (cabbage, left) and Brassica rapa (Chinese cabbage, right) have taken similar evolutionary paths to arrive at their similar, but distinct, appearances. During domestication, farmers selected for cabbages of both species to have the large, leafy heads for which they are known. As shown in the study, the farmers were unknowingly selecting for orthologous genes in these two species. Continue reading →

July issue cover: What’s going on here?

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JulyThis month’s cover features the inspiring block-like karst mountains of the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo in Guangxi province. The image was inspired by a study in this month’s issue reporting deep sequencing of the MHC region in individuals of Han Chinese ancestry. The study represents an important resource for the study of immune-related disorders in Asian populations. It also identifies loci associated with risk of psoriasis, thus demonstrating the power of this resource.

In addition to simply being a beautiful image evocative of the mountains in Guangxi province, the image also brings to mind the peaks that might be observed in many types of genomic data, such as Sanger sequencing reads, ChIP-seq peaks, etc.

Our own chief editor, Myles Axton, did first-hand research leading to the selection of this cover image. As he found, the Yulong River in Yangshuo is less muddy than the Li River and better for swimming and sightseeing from bamboo rafts (arrow indicates NG editor in the field).

Yulong River

Yulong River{credit}Myles Axton{/credit}

 

Myles holding a 20 yuan note with drawing of karst mountains.

Myles holding a 20 yuan note with drawing of karst mountains.{credit}Myles Axton{/credit}