Been away... and new Affy stuff!

Been away from home for two days straight, just came back and I'm exhausted... My girlfriend had laser eye surgery (not Lasik, a fancy one because she have weird, but pretty eyes). She can`t see yet so I have to help her do the most basic things... the fun part is that we have to close every lights in the apartment (painful), so I don`t see a thing either :) I can`t go sleep without posting some fresh news however, so here you are : Affymetrix released today this press release announcing its ENCODE array, destined to be used in the ENCODE project (the next logical step after the Human Genome Project). ENCODE stands for "Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements" and is a pilot project aiming to characterize selected non-coding regions (1% of known "junk" DNA) of the genome. The new array (named ENCODE01) can be used for de novo transcription mapping, Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) Assays, and methylation studies. Its a tool that will help to understand these non-coding areas, which can be promoters, enhancers, silencers, insulators, or something else completely new. Biology still has secrets to reveal, stay tuned. As a side note, I`ve been getting lots of email which I`ll answer as soon as possible (interaction is always appreciated, by email or via the comments system). Traffic is increasing nicely on this blog, which is a good thing. As ever, don`t hesitate to talk about this place / link to it; this blog is destined to be an excellent source of info about bioinformatics news. I`m looking for a domain name / hosting company to migrate to if it gets big enough and ad revenue follow (right now, with luck, I'll buy myself a big chocolate bar at the end of the year. And I LOVE chocolate! :)). Obviously all the good names (www.bio.info, etc) are taken, and are not even hosting content! :( Oh well...