Find out how on the Web site of Project Ensembl, a European organization that develops genome-related software. At the May 2000 Annual Meeting on Genome Sequencing and Biology at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, New York, Ewan Birney, team leader of Project Ensembl, proposed GeneSweep, a betting pool to guess the total number of human genes. All bets must be entered by hand, in person, in ink, in a book kept at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Individuals can bet only once per calendar year.
The 340 bets to date range from 27,270 to 312,278, with a mean of 65,833. James Watson, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA, bet 73,210. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, guessed 48,011. In handicapping the genome, we lean toward the 30,000-31,000 range. At Home Corporation.