*sigh* I wish science reporting could be accurate. Looking at pubmed, there are papers on Nek1 going back to 1992 (although that is the protein) just looking at titles the gene goes back to at least 1999 and I would guess some of the papers before that talk about the gene.
C21orf2 was described as a 'novel gene' in a paper published in 1998.
The new research is important, but stating that they have found a new genes is not what was done and those involved with work before deserve credit for it.