Texas Monthly; Getty Marveling at the size of the elephants or squealing at the cuteness of the meerkats, visitors come regularly to the Houston Zoo for the chance to observe exotic animals up-close. Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, a laboratory houses a markedly different sort of zoo. Instead of furry and feathered creatures in enclosures, there are thousands of blood samples in a pair of freezers surrounded by dozens of white boards covered by mathematical equations. This is the DNA Zoo, where a team of thirty-plus scientists use cutting-edge genomic technology in service of boosting the ...