Didn't you see an "analyze this sequence" menu on the right?

* Run BLAST

* Pick Primers

* Highlight Sequence Features

* Find in this Sequence

The BLAST algorithm is an interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAST_(biotechnology)

I can see its power even if I'm not a biologist. For example, I just submitted (everyone can use the system) a BLAST task for a megablast search to compare NC_045512.2 (Wuhan-Hu-1) and NC_004718.3 (SARS coronavirus) for an alignment, and the system is able to "diff" between the two sequences (and even has an option to visualize it in a 2D graph), and finally telling us that 82.3% of the both genetic sequences are identical (not really close in a biological sense). You can also search identical genetic sequences across the entire databases by constructing a more complex query.

Here's my result: https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?CMD=Get&RID=2MDW41R...

And apparently, the specific algorithm used to produce my result is described in this paper.

> Zheng Zhang, Scott Schwartz, Lukas Wagner, and Webb Miller (2000), "A greedy algorithm for aligning DNA sequences", J Comput Biol 2000; 7(1-2):203-14.

http://pipmaker.bx.psu.edu/dist/greedy.pdf

It looks like a simple algorithm, which can be implemented for fun as a weekend project. One can run one's program on real DNA sequences, and compare the outputs with NIH's implementation. Don't forget to write an article and submit it to Hacker News when you're done. Biohacking!

There are DNA based virus detection techniques that take fragments of DNA of unknown origin and compare them to a database of known bad stuff. So I think it could allow people that have the ability to sequence DNA to identify this virus if they have, for example, a patient.