My memories of the Human Genome Project are fuzzy. I was a child and then teenager in the '90s, and I had only an ambient awareness of it and other related breakthroughs (hello, Dolly!). So this week, when I edited a spectacular essay by Zachary Utz about his work on the Human Genome Project archives, I learned a lot, including about the 1990 campaign by some very influential scientists not to undertake the project.
But, Utz wrote, he was worried that the archives he and his colleagues worked so hard to preserve could soon disappear. He was the National Human Genome Research Institute's archivist, and like many at the National Institutes of Health, he lost his job as part of the Health and Human Services cuts. "The digital archival records my colleagues and I maintained are currently inaccessible. I worry that they might be gone altogether, either now or sometime in the future," he wrote.
It's a great example of the kinds of work that most of us might not have thought about when the layoffs began — and Utz makes a strong case that preserving the history of science is crucial to the future, too.
Do you have any particularly strong memories about the Human Genome Project? I want to hear them!
Recommendation of the week: The BBC podcast "Intrigue" usually takes on splashy, global stories, from a Kpop sex scandal to how Nazis escaped Western Europe. But this past week I binged the season "Million-Dollar Lover," which is quieter and more local: A reporter examines the romantic relationship of her 80-year-old neighbor — who has grown wealthy thanks to lucky California real estate purchases — and her 50-something, tattooed handyman. It's a fascinating look at the blurry line between aging and dementia, and the rights of an elderly person to make decisions her family disagrees with.
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