a major risk factor for heart attack. As all deCODE's data sits on its servers and can be queried simultaneously, it can also be queried with remarkable speed. In 2014, a group from the Broad Institute stopped by at deCODE on its way back from Finland, where through a major research effort they had found a variant that protected carriers against type 2 diabetes. Over coffee, the deCODE team confirmed that the Finnish variant did not exist in Iceland, but that another did. The Broad group added it to the paper announcing the discovery. Because of its singular population resources and the questions its scientists can ask and answer, many of deCODE's most remarkable findings have been in basic science. One notable focus has been on elucidating how variation in the sequence of the genome is generated. Following its microsatellite-based genetic map of the genome in 2002, the company created and made available to the scientific community two more: one in 2010 built on 300,000 SNPs, and another in 2019 built on WGS data. Recombination - the reshuffling of chromosomes that takes place in the making of eggs and sperm - is a primary mechanism for generating diversity and to build these maps. Over fifteen years deCODE has published a series of breakthrough papers detailing in a real human population how recombination rate varies according to sex, age and other characteristics, and how these differences impact the generation of genomic diversity and variation of many kinds. The general picture that has emerged is that the genome is generating diversity but within certain bounds, providing a dynamic but generally stable substrate for natural selection and evolution. To understand the population that it is working in and to address broader questions few can in the same way, deCODE has also from its early days had its own genetic anthropology group. It has published pioneering work on mitochondrial and Y-chromosome mutation to trace the Norwegian and Celtic mix in the early population; sequenced ancient DNA from the settlement period; compared ancient and modern Icelandic genomes to see how genetic drift, epidemics and natural disasters have yielded a modern-day population genetically distinct from its forbears and source populations. and observed variants under positive natural selection in a present-day society. The company has also catalogued human knockouts - people missing certain genes - and reconstructed the genome of the first man of African descent to