GEnome or geNOME

[Herb Stahlke]

This morning I heard Carl Kassel, reporting on the nearly completed mapping of the human genome, stress the ultima.  In other reports and interviews I've heard both pronunciations, from both reporters and researchers.  I checked the AHD, the only dictionary I have that's recent enough to list the word, and it gives only penultimate stress, although it does list a second spelling without the final -e and pronounced with a short <o>.  Where is the final-stressed pronunciation coming from?  I can imagine explanations, like an ersatz-French hypercorrection, but none of them sounds particularly likely.

Herb Stahlke
Ball State University