Mar 01 2010
Faces of America is a four-part series in which Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. uses genealogy and genetics to explore the family histories of 12 renowned Americans in an effort to understand what made the United States the place it is today.
The final episode, “Know Thyself” airs this Wednesday (March 3) on PBS. In [...]
Feb 23 2010
The journal Current Biology has a special review issue on the global genetic history of Homo sapiens. The articles are written for a fairly technical audience, but if it’s a topic you’re interested in, you might want to check it out. All of the articles are available online for free.
Archaeogenetics — Towards a ‘New [...]
Feb 18 2010
Group of hunters from the Ju/’hoansi tribe in the Namibian Bush/ Stephan C. Schuster
Researchers from Penn State University, the University of New South Wales in Australia, and the Baylor College of Medicine have sequenced the genomes of four individuals from different groups of the click-speaking San of southern Africa, as well as of Bishop Desmond [...]
Feb 10 2010
Artist’s impression of Inuk based on genetic analysis
Nuka Godfredsen/Nature
Tufts of hair rescued from the permafrost in Greenland and then tucked away in a basement in Denmark for more than 20 years have given scientists their first glimpse into the genetics of an ancient human.
Eske Willerslev and Morten Rasmussen of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the [...]
Feb 09 2010
Faces of America is a four-part series in which Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. uses genealogy and genetics to explore the family histories of 12 renowned Americans in an effort to understand what made the United States the place it is today.
The list of participants includes:
Elizabeth Alexander, professor and poet
Mario Batali, chef
Stephen Colbert, comedian
Louise [...]
Feb 04 2010
Warfarin (Coumadin®) is a blood thinner given to people at high risk for the formation of blood clots due to conditions such as deep vein thrombosis, heart valve disease or replacement, and irregular heart beat. The drug is also given to prevent recurrence of pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke.
If too little warfarin is prescribed, [...]
Jan 26 2010
By Nick Eriksson, 23andMe Principal Scientist, and Lizzie Dorfman, Parkinson’s Research Project Manager
Less than a year ago we announced the launch of the 23andMe Parkinson’s Research Initiative. Since then, we have built one of the world’s most useful resources for studying the genetics of Parkinson’s disease. This past December we had meetings with the National [...]
Jan 11 2010
As shown in these ancestry paintings from 23andMe, the proportion of African DNA can vary widely for African Americans.
A recent study led by Carlos Bustamante of Cornell and Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that genetically speaking, African American can mean a lot of different things.
The researchers and their co-workers analyzed DNA [...]
Jan 06 2010
Using a research method very similar to the one used in 23andMe’s Global Similarity advanced view feature, researchers have discovered that most of the embryonic stem cell lines currently studied by researchers are derived from European and Middle Eastern populations. Only two out of 47 were derived from egg and sperm coming from people with [...]
Jan 04 2010
In 2009, we added six tools to 23andMe Labs, our technology sandbox where we showcase experimental features. In case you haven’t played around with them yet, here’s a brief review:
Health Labs
Reynolds Risk Score
This tool calculates a 10-year risk for heart-attack using information including cholesterol and blood pressure.
ABO Blood Type
There actually are more than 25 different [...]
