The Road to Hell is Paved with Bioinformatics Formats

If you really want to raise a bioinformaticist's blood pressure, loudly declare your new tool generates output in brand new data formats.  This leads to the frequent observation that a large fraction of bioinformatics work is simply converting formats. It is probably consensus that the field is awash in too many formats, though it is equally clear that we can't agree on which should survive.  Between some recent news and a Twitter thread on the subject that erupted last night, there was a bunch of fodder for me to collect in a Storify -- and to lay out my own idiosyncratic views.

Do Helix's Numbers Work?

A number of efforts in the consumer genomics space have been attempted in the past, with 23andMe appearing to make limited headway and Knome not much at all.  I haven't been able to get any investment interest in my own concept, though perhaps that's because it was tongue-in-cheek (or tongue held out while panting).  Last week brought a big splash, with a new company Helix launching with $100M and three major players as backers: Illumina, LabCorp and the Mayo Clinic