Commentary
Badomics words and the power and peril of the ome-meme
Genome Center, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA, USA
GigaScience 2012, 1:6 doi:10.1186/2047-217X-1-6
Published: 12 July 2012Abstract
Languages and cultures, like organisms, are constantly evolving. Words, like genes, can come and go–spreading around or going extinct. Here I discuss the spread of one small subset of words that are meant to convey “comprehensiveness” in some way: the “omes” and other words derived from “genome” or “genomics.” I focus on a bad aspect of this spread the use of what I refer to as “badomics” words. I discuss why these should be considered bad and how to distinguish badomics words from good ones.
