HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The ability to spin a good yarn recently kept an international team of researchers focused on Gossypium raimondii, the simplest cotton genome. The researchers, including Jeremy Schmutz, faculty investigator at HudsonAlpha and head of the plant program at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute, compared the high quality draft assembly of the G. raimondii genome against other cotton species. The team’s findings are presented in the Dec. 20, 2012 edition of Nature.
HudsonAlpha is once again partnering with Sci-Quest to put education in the hands of Madison County students, thanks to a grant from Venturi Brighter Day Employee Fund. The $6,500 grant will be used to purchase microscopes for several mobile labs. 
Genetic Technologies for Alabama Classrooms (GTAC) is a two-week teacher academy designed to help Alabama educators more effectively teach genetics by updating content knowledge, identifying common student misconceptions and gaining familiarity with hands-on genetic activities and classroom tools.
Huntsville, Ala. - A Huntsville company whose fingerprint scanner can photographically capture fingerprints from as far as six meters has been named to Popular Science's "Study illuminates photosynthesis as an evolutionary process
HudsonAlpha scientists among those examining tiny algae
HUNTSVILLE, Ala - When you think about walking through a tall meadow of grass, you likely envision peace and calm. But on a sunny day those grass blades are busy factories turning light into food energy through a complex mechanism of enzymes arranged in the photosynthetic pathway. Those grass cells can only act as factories because distant ancestors declared war on other cells and swallowed them whole, trapping and forcing them to work for the grass cell.
Buttoning up the button mushroom genome
HUNTSVILLE, Ala - You may know it as your favorite pizza topping but researchers also know the button mushroom, or Agaricus bisporus, as a known decayer of leaves and other matter along the forest floor. Through an international collaboration including the HudsonAlpha Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute and numerous other research labs, the full genome and gene repertoire for the button mushroom has been completed, giving scientists a better understanding of its full capabilities. 
