Consumer genomics companies generate varying assessments for one writer's disease risks.

A simple sea critter stirred up evolutionary history this year.

In PNAS this week: human population growth, citrate mutations, and more.

NIH has launched new initiatives to expand biomedical workforce diversity.

NOTE TO READERS: GenomeWeb Daily News will publish one bulletin today and will not publish on Wednesday, Jan. 1 in observance of the New Year holiday.

Samsung has been awarded US Patent No. 8,618,253, "Modified RNAse H and detection of nucleic acid amplification." Win Den Chung and Jason Opdyke are named as inventors.

As researchers increasingly rely on sequencing to tally up variation within and between populations, the technology is poised to contribute to future functional studies of human adaptations and more.

This article was originally published Dec. 30.

This article was originally published Dec. 30. Fluidigm has released a sample preparation workflow for its C1 Single-Cell Auto Prep system that processes single cells and amplifies their DNA for use in targeted, whole-exome, and whole-genome sequencing.

Rapid single-colony whole-genome sequencing of bacterial pathogens. Köser CU, Fraser LJ, Ioannou A, Becq J, et al. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2013 Dec 25. [Epub ahead of print]

Agilent Technologies said that Lars Holmkvist has resigned from his position as senior VP of the company and group president of its Life Sciences and Diagnostics Group.

Fluidigm has launched C1 DNA Sequencing, a sample prep workflow for single-cell sequencing that runs on its C1 Single-Cell Auto Prep System (see

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Reorganizations, industry acquisitions, US Food and Drug Administration action on direct-to-consumer genomics, and the end of a partnership were among the topics that drew the most interest from readers in 2013.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Quidel said after the close of the market on Monday that the US Food and Drug Administration has cleared the company's AmpliVue Group B Strep Assay, the second assay to receive FDA clearance to run on the AmpliVue handheld molecular testing platform.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – BGI Health and Chile's University of Mayor recently announced an agreement to bring genomic testing to that country and the neighboring region.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Though Thermo Fisher Scientific's pending $13.6 billion purchase of Life Technologies sent shockwaves through the industry and led some to speculate about further deals, mergers and acqu

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb Daily News) – Drawing on regions of the human genome that are under neutral selective pressures, researchers led by Cornell University's Alon Keinan found that the human population has increased by about 100-fold during the past 3,000 to 4,000 years.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Coriell Institute for Medical Research recently announced a $7.7 million contract extension from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke to maintain the institute's biobank.

Microbiomes and the Supreme Court's Myriad decision are among the top science stories of the year.

Coverage for genetic risk testing follow-up care varies between the states.

Nature is collaborating with Reddit to get readers and journalists more engaged.

In PLOS this week: natural frequency of rare variants, missing heritability, and more.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services updated its reimbursement level for BRACA testing at $1,438 for 2014, a slash of nearly 49 percent from a previous level of $2,795.

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – What were the articles that gained the most interest from GenomeWeb Daily News' readers last week? Here are the top five:

NIH Director Francis Collins warns in the Washington Post that biomedical research in the US "is at a critical juncture."