79b493d56edd2ffdafebdd20bc69528b3bdfee0a lrnassar Mon Sep 28 15:54:54 2026 -0700 News announcement for the redesigned BLAT search and results pages, with the matching indexNews.html item. The entry carries two anchors: #100726 for the usual date form and #newBLAT, which the blatNewFormNewsUrl hg.conf setting on the BLAT banner points at. The banner announces the switch to the new pages on October 28. refs #37996 diff --git src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html index 7c0a1336af5..b4089c6ceac 100644 --- src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html +++ src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html @@ -52,30 +52,88 @@

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Smaller software changes are not announced here. A summary of the three-weekly release changes can be found here. For the full list of our daily code changes head to our GitHub page. Lastly, see our credits page for acknowledgments of the data we host.

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Oct. 7, 2026 Redesigned BLAT search and results pages

+We are happy to announce a redesign of our +BLAT sequence search tool. You can +reach the new pages from the banner on the current BLAT pages now, and they will +become the default on October 28. You will be able to opt out of the new page +and continue to use the classic interface after the change. +

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Summary of changes

+ A single search box lets you find any of our assemblies, including the more than + 5,000 GenArk assembly hubs, by typing a species name, common name, or accession. + Below it you will find quick picks for your recent assemblies, tabs to paste a + sequence or upload a file, a live character counter, and a link listing the input + limits. +
+ Results now appear in a sortable, filterable table instead of the fixed-width text + output. Each hit shows a query coverage bar, score, identity, and span, and + clicking a row opens a panel with links to view the hit in the Genome Browser or + inspect the base-by-base alignment on a redesigned alignment page. +
+ Each hit now also shows its gene locus, one of our most requested features, so you + can see which gene a match falls in without opening it in the Genome Browser. +
+ From the results page you can also rename the BLAT results track, display your + query sequence, and share your results with a stable link that keeps the result + available to colleagues for 48 hours. +
+ Result tracks now have their own BLAT Results group on the main browser + page and in the track search, separate from Custom Tracks, with a button to delete + all of them at once. +
+ The tracks have clearer names, made of the query size and the gene at the top hit, + for example "360bp SOD1", instead of "blat YourSeq". +
+ We have added a new option, Keep only last search, that will keep only your + latest results and discard the previous ones. This behavior will match how BLAT + has previously worked. +

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+If you have feedback on the new pages, we would love to hear from you at +our contact page. +We would like to thank Maximilian Haeussler, Lou Nassar, Gerardo Perez, Brian Raney, +and the entire QA team for the design, development, and testing of these features. +

Sep. 10, 2026 New AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score track for hg38

We are pleased to announce a new track showing the AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score from Google DeepMind's AlphaGenome Atlas, on the human GRCh38/hg38 assembly. The score combines AlphaGenome's predictions of how a variant affects gene regulation, covering expression, splicing, chromatin accessibility and transcription factor binding across hundreds of cell types, with AlphaMissense predictions for protein-altering changes. The result is a single number that ranks how damaging a substitution is likely to be. Unlike most prediction scores, it covers non-coding variants as well as coding ones, across the whole genome.