Oct 02 2009
Through the millennia wave after wave of migrants – often in the form of invading armies – have descended upon the British Isles.
The first people to arrive after the Ice Age were hunter-gatherers who followed their prey north from southern Europe about 12,000 years ago. The Celts came from central Europe about 3,000 years ago. [...]
May 26 2009
Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in the developing world, claiming nearly a million victims each year. The great majority of them are African children below the age of five. The illness is caused by a single-celled parasite called Plasmodium that is transmitted by mosquito bites to humans. In a paper published [...]
Jan 12 2009
For an insightful and thought-provoking essay on the present and future of personal genomics, as well as the role that 23andMe is playing in its advancement, check out Steven Pinker’s essay “My Genome, My Self” in this week’s New York Times magazine.
Pinker, who is a 23andMe customer himself and also a participant in George Church’s [...]
Nov 15 2008
In a way, organ transplantation is the one branch of medicine that has already been personalized, because doctors must carefully match the immune systems of donor and recipient to prevent rejection.
Now transplant physicians in Germany have taken that procedure a step further by engineering not just a successful bone marrow transplant, but one that appears [...]
Nov 12 2008
Like many Americans, Vincent Vizachero knew only bits and pieces about his family history. He knew, for instance, that his paternal grandfather emigrated to America from Italy in 1914. But because his grandfather died long before he was born, Vincent did not hear a lot of family stories growing up. So he had to dig [...]
Nov 11 2008
When 23andMe launched last November, we set out to make genetics accessible to everyone – not just the experts. So we created a series of education videos called Genetics 101. These videos educated viewers on the basics of genetics: What is a gene, what is a SNP, how genes are inherited from generation to generation, [...]
Sep 26 2008
The practice of monogamy – the most popular mating practice on the planet today – is nothing new. In fact, anthropologists have found evidence of monogamous relationships in Homo erectus, a human ancestor that lived nearly 2 million years ago.
But the alternative to monogamy – polygamy – though not nearly as popular in today’s [...]
Sep 08 2008
A good diet and plenty of exercise are important for maintaining a healthy weight, but they’re not the whole story. Studies have shown that there’s a substantial genetic component to body mass index. Research published today in Archives of Internal Medicine demonstrates, however, that in people with a genetic predisposition for obesity, DNA [...]
Aug 22 2008
As science types, we’re often mystified — and maybe just a little exasperated — by the details of health care policy. But 23andMe director Esther Dyson has a very interesting post on the blog of the policy journal Health Affairs that we recommend.
It’s very interesting to hear what Esther, a person who often seems to [...]
Aug 16 2008
The following post is by Esther Dyson, a director at 23andMe and investor in numerous private aviation, space and health care ventures, including PatientsLikeMe.
Last weekend I attended Science Foo Camp, a sort of grown-up summer camp for scientists sponsored by Google (an investor in 23andMe), Nature Magazine and O’Reilly Media.
Aside from the science itself (which [...]
