NSF's Ark Draws Alligators, Algae, and Wasps

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) launched a novel $6.4 million competition a year ago, attempting to boost genetic research on organisms not deemed to be models of human biology and thus not usually funded by biomedical science. The agency decreed that most of the projects should be broad, covering as many branches on the Tree of Life as possible. NSF9s purpose is to start building libraries of so-called bacterial artificial chromosomes for detailed genetic studies of neglected species.