The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or ENCODE, project just published a glut of papers —30 publications in a variety of journals from more than 440 researchers — looking at the function of various regions of the human genome. The project's "aim is to catalogue the 'functional' DNA sequences that lurk there, learn when and in which cells they are active and trace their effects on how the genome is packaged, regulated and read," writes Brendan Maher at Nature.