It’s been almost a year since I wrote about my genetic testing results from 23andMe. That’s because, despite paying $5 a month for the site’s mandatory Personal Genome Service®, I rarely look at it. It’s not that I’m scared of the data (been there), and not because I forgot — every six or eight weeks I get […]
DNA
** The new study, certainly not the last word on DNA, was published last week in The EMBO Journal. The music is Chopin’s Minute Waltz, the subject of another post.
In his several books and many articles in magazines and academic journals, Horace Freeland Judson dared to size scientists up, though he wasn’t one. He died on May 6, age 80. He was my teacher and my friend, and I would like to say a few things about his works both to offer tribute and […]
Last week, officials said that DNA from multiple family members was used to confirm that its years-long hunt for Osama bin Laden had ended in success. But even as politicians criticized President Obama’s decision not to release photos of the dead bin Laden, nobody questioned the assertion that, thanks to DNA, US officials are “99.9” […]
On Friday I woke up too early with a splitting headache and chest pain. This was alarming. In the shower, I tried to come up with a list of plausible explanations, but my mind found only one: the four cups of coffee I drank the day before. I wondered, is this how a heart attack […]
The email was the opposite of scary. Subject: “Your Genetic Profile is Ready at 23andMe!” Six weeks earlier, I had mailed the genetic testing company a tube of my own spit. Now it was time for me to “start exploring” the results. I was terrified. I read a lot about genetics, so I knew that […]