Scientific highlights of the Human Genome Project and the Celera Genomics genome project, as published this week in the journals Nature and Science:

        • The published work provides the first look at the contents of the genome map, a draft version of which was completed last summer.

        • The human genome — the details of the human blueprint, comprising 3 billion letters of genetic code — contains about 25,000 to 35,000 genes. The government paper puts the number at 31,000; Celera says about 26,000. That is far fewer than most scientists had expected. To compare, a fruit fly has 13,000 genes. Most scientists had believed there were at least 60,000 or so, and one biotech firm had an estimate as high as 140,000.

        • The 50 percent of the genome that scientists once thought was unimportant and dismissed as “junk” contains the historical genetic record of our evolution and the raw material for future evolution.

        • Humans share some genes that regulate important processes such as enzyme creation or metabolic functions, with bacteria — but those genes are found in no other creatures between bacteria and humans. We may have picked up these traits via bacterial infection.

        • Humans share about 99.9 percent of the genome with one another; it's that last 0.1 percent that accounts for our differences.

        • Inherited genetic mutations arise about twice as often in men than women, a finding that confirms a recent study.

        • Only 1 percent to 1.5 percent of the human DNA carries instructions for making proteins, compared to the 3 percent to 5 percent the researchers expected. Genes tell cells how to make proteins, which are crucial for each cell's structure and functioning.

        • Along the stretches of DNA, genes tend to occur in clusters, like cities separated by vast stretches of countryside.

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