Deciphering human differences

With the help of new high-speed DNA sequencing technology, scientists have uncovered extensive regions in the human genome where chunks of DNA have been deleted, copied, or completely rearranged.

Until recently, most researchers believed that differences among individuals were mainly due to changes in single bases, or "DNA letters." Over the past couple of years, however, several studies have shown that rearrangements of large chunks of DNA (imagine shuffling around entire sentences, pages, or chapters in a book) could play a more important role. "These are pretty big changes," says Michael Snyder, a molecular biologist at Yale University. "When you flip around 8,000 bases of DNA, that's likely to have a dramatic impact."

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