Cape lions used to roam the Cape Flats grassland plains of South Africa, in what is now known as Western Cape Providence. When Europeans arrived in South Africa in the mid-1600s, Cape lions, along with many other African carnivores and herbivores, were hunted as agricultural practice to protect livestock and humans. By the mid-1800s, less than 200 years since European arrival, Cape lions had been hunted to extinction.

From May 18th to 20th in Chicago, over 15,000 visitors experienced the World of Genomics at the Field Museum of Natural History, a three-day event presented by the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. A large, blue-lit funnel representing the tree of life dominated the space; beneath it, the world’s smallest sequencer read out the genomes of never-before-sequenced organisms currently studied at the IGB.

From May 18th to 20th in Chicago, over 10,000 visitors experienced the World of Genomics at the Field Museum of Natural History, a three-day event presented by the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. A large, blue-lit funnel representing the tree of life dominated the space; beneath it, the world’s smallest sequencer read out the genomes of never-before-sequenced organisms currently studied at the IGB.