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Commentary on human genetics and evolution, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, and the personal genomics industry.
Daniel MacArthur
I write about the genetic and evolutionary basis of human variation, and the companies trying to sell you information about your genome.
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February 25, 2009
From an editorial in this week's Nature:Indeed, researchers would do well to blog more than they do. The experience of journals such as Cell and PLoS ONE, which allow people to comment on papers online, suggests that researchers are very...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 5:15 PM • 5 Comments •
February 23, 2009
Category: oxford nanopore technologies
Third-generation sequencing contender Oxford Nanopore has a new paper out demonstrating proof of principle for the direct reading of the sequence of a DNA strand using tiny protein nanopores.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 7:00 AM • 7 Comments •
February 21, 2009
Category: genetics of normal variation
Researchers are studying the genetic basis of variation in face shape - raising the possibility of predicting faces from DNA, either for forensic work or (more controversially) for IVF embryos via pre-implantation genetic testing.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 9:00 AM • 4 Comments •
February 20, 2009
Category: personal genomics
I'm struggling to figure out what is more disturbing about this post - the fact that 23andMe are actually trying to say that BRCA gene testing is not "medical genetic testing", or Steve Murphy talking about his "man parts". Subscribe...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 2:45 PM • 32 Comments •
Category: personal genomics
The collaborative project between personal genomics provider Navigenics and the Scripps Institute has generated less interest than expected.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 11:30 AM • 4 Comments •
February 19, 2009
Category: personal genomics
Icelandic genomics company deCODE Genetics has received a license to market direct-to-consumer genetic tests (such as the genome scan provided by daughter company deCODEme) in the state of California. This follows the regulatory crackdown by California's public health department last...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 12:30 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: pharmacogenomics
A new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that adding genetic information to clinical data improves doctors' ability to predict the optimal dosage of a widely-used blood-thinning drug.
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 7:45 AM • 8 Comments •
February 18, 2009
Category: ancient dna
I'm guessing a lot of us have been waiting for John Hawks to comment in detail about the release of low-coverage sequencing of the Neanderthal genome - well, wait no longer. Subscribe to Genetic Future....
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 9:10 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: race
I was surprised by the response to my brief post on the question of whether group (race or gender) differences in intelligence are a valid topic for scientific investigation: not only because of the volume of comments, but also because...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 8:50 AM • 11 Comments •
February 16, 2009
Category: race
Just in case anyone has missed it, the pair of duelling essays in the latest issue of Nature is well worth a read. The topic is whether there is any justification for scientific exploration of associations between gender or race...
Posted by Daniel MacArthur at 12:00 PM • 127 Comments •
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