Microsoft fixes the Excel feature that was wrecking scientific data

In 2020, scientists decided just to rework the alphanumeric symbols they used to represent genes rather than try to deal with an Excel feature that was interpreting their names as dates and (un)helpfully reformatting them automatically. Yesterday, a

that the company is rolling out an update on Windows and macOS to fix that.

Excel’s automatic conversions are intended to make it easier and faster to input…