Cover image

This artwork integrates the cultural backgrounds of the West (Taurus from Greek mythology) and the East (Chinese folk tale “The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl”). The main stars of the Taurus constellation represent cattle breeds worldwide. The DNA double helices of different cattle breeds form a colorful bridge built by magpies, over which the Cowherd leads the Bull to meet the Weaver Girl. At the bridge's other end, the Weaver Girl crafts the genome threads into beautiful ribbons, which represent the cattle pangenome. The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl also symbolize cattle farmers and scientists, respectively. Scientists sequence, analyze, and assemble the cattle genomes to enhance cattle breeding and production, benefiting the farmers and consumers. In this issue, a new pangenome and an enhanced structural variation catalog for global cattle are generated, revealing missing sequences, novel structural variations, their diversity, and their evolutionary history. (Cover art concept by Yang Zhou and George Liu, illustrated by Shanghai Bangtu Cultural Media Co., Ltd. [http://www.bangtuwh.com/]. [For details, see Zhou et al., pp. 1585–1601.])