Introduction: the why and whither of genomic data sharing

Genomics is the science of genomes: it is the study of all the genetic material of an organism. In humans, the genome consists of information carried in 23 pairs of chromosomes in the nucleus, as well as mitochondrial DNA. In genomics, both coding and non-coding DNA is sequenced and analyzed. Genomics allows a better understanding of all living things, their evolution, and their diversity. It has a myriad of uses: for example, to build phylogenetic trees, to improve productivity and...

Diploid organisms inherit genetic material through chromosomes from both parents. Copies of the same gene are known as alleles. In most cases, both alleles are simultaneously expressed and allow various cellular processes to function optimally. If one of the alleles is missing or mutated, the expression of the other allele can compensate; however, this is not true for all genes.
The expression of some genes depends on which parent passed the gene to the offspring, through a phenomenon known as...

While every living organism has a genome of some kind (be it RNA, or DNA), there is considerable variation in the sizes of these blueprints. One major factor that impacts genome size is whether the organism is prokaryotic or eukaryotic. In prokaryotes, the genome contains little to no non-coding sequence, such that genes are tightly clustered in groups or operons sequentially along the chromosome. Conversely, the genes in eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of non-coding sequence.

The present-day mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes have retained some of the characteristics of their ancestral prokaryotes and also have acquired new attributes during their evolution within eukaryotic cells. Like prokaryotic genomes, mitochondrial and chloroplast genomes neither bind with histone-like proteins nor show complex packaging into chromosome-like structures, as observed in eukaryotes. Unlike mitotic cell divisions observed in eukaryotic cells, mitochondria and chloroplasts...

A variable, usually notated by capital letters such as X and Y, is a characteristic or measurement that can be determined for each member of a population. Data are the actual values of variables. They may be numbers, or they may be words. Datum is a single value.
Data are classified based on whether they are measurable or not. Categorical data cannot be measured; instead, it can be divided into categories. For example, if Y denotes a person's party affiliation, some examples of Y include...

Data that are countable or measurable in specific units are called numerical or quantitative data. Quantitative data are always numbers. Quantitative data are the result of counting or measuring the attributes of a population. Amount of money, pulse rate, weight, number of people living in a town, and number of students who opt for statistics are examples of quantitative data.
Quantitative data may be either discrete or continuous. All quantitative data that take on only specific numerical...