See the new article at Seed Magazine “Inheriting Confucius,” which discusses efforts to generate a family tree containing the 2 million+ descendants of Confucius.
Kong De-Yong, a 77th(!) generation descendant of Confucius, has been compiling the tree for the last 10 years. Although the Committee is accepting submissions from women and other previously excluded groups, […]
Thomas Goetz has written another terrific article about genetic testing and the Personal Genome Project. This article, entitled “The Gene Collector,” appears in Wired Magazine. The article provides some new information about the PGP, including some of the incredibly detailed phenotype information that will be collected from the next 100,000 volunteers in the […]
Last week the genetic genealogy community lost one of its treasured members, Leo W. Little.
Leo’s passing was announced on the GENEALOGY-DNA mailing list on Sunday evening. Since then, many members of that mailing list, the ISOGG Yahoo Group, and the DNA- ANTHROGENEALOGY Yahoo Group have expressed their sympathy to Leo’s family and expressed […]
Although the genome scanning services offered by companies such as 23andMe, deCODEme, and SeqWright have been front and center in the press the last few weeks, I’m sure that the following information will not be included in any of the reports.
Comparisons
Two different sources have concluded that the scanning service offered by 23andMe and deCODEme, […]
A long-anticipated new version of the Y-Chromosome Tree will be released in the journal Genome Research tomorrow (Wednesday, April 2nd). In the paper, scientists from the University of Arizona and Stanford University use recent SNP data and research to reformulate the familiar Y-chromosome tree (see, for example, the current tree at ISOGG). Here […]
Here are a few of the many interesting links from the DNA blogosphere:
DNA Testing Firms Eye Consumers (BBC) - yet another article that looks at both sides of the “should you test” debate.
Genetic Testing Gets Personal (Washington Post) - a lengthy discussion of many different types of DNA testing.
The Scientific Studies/Papers Page at ISOGG […]
If you’re interested in DNA, Native American History, or genetic genealogy, then you’re undoubtedly heard of a new paper from PLoS ONE called “The Phylogeny of the Four Pan-American mtDNA Haplogroups: Implications for Evolutionary and Disease Studies.” The authors, from all around the world (including Ugo A. Perego from SMGF and Antonio Torroni […]
28 February 2008 – 3:00 am
On the heels of my recent post discussing all the interesting information that’s recently entered the blogosphere about genetic genealogy and DNA studies, here are a few more:
Misha Angrist, one of the Personal Genome Project’s “First 10“, wrote an article about the inevitability of DNA sequencing at News Observer. The article is […]
27 February 2008 – 3:00 am
There is so much to talk about, and so little time to write. So I thought I’d do a round-up post to bring these interesting stories to your attention. I hope you enjoy the following:
Of great significance to genetic genealogists, the Wall Street Journal says that as many as 1 in 25 […]
15 February 2008 – 3:00 am
Jesse Woodson James, born September 5, 1847 and died April 3, 1882, was an infamous American outlaw. Despite strong evidence that James was killed on April 3, 1882, some theorized that his death was staged and that he in fact survived to father additional children.
In 1995, researchers set out to use relatively […]
15 January 2008 – 3:00 am
What are the chances that Megan Smolenyak would meet and marry a man with the surname Smolenyak without being at least distantly related to him? What if the two surname lines came from the same area of the world? I’m sure that everyone who has heard of Megan has wondered how she […]
12 January 2008 – 3:00 am
As I was reading through the GENEALOGY-DNA list from Rootsweb this morning, I came across a great question about the frequency of mutation of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
The listmember asks “I am wondering if anyone would know the odds of having a mutation between my brother and me in our mtDNA. Marker 16163 is […]
11 January 2008 – 3:00 am
A report published in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Letting the Genome Out of the Bottle - Will We Get Our Wish?” is getting a lot of coverage elsewhere, but I thought I’d add my two cents. The report’s authors are largely concerned with quality control, clinical validity (the actual predictive […]
Scientists from the University of Utah have traced a mutation in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene to a Mr. and Mrs. George Fry, who arrived in the New World aboard the William & Mary around 1630.
The mutation, c.426_427delAT, is believed to increase the carrier’s chances of developing colon cancer from 2 in 3 […]
30 December 2007 – 3:00 am
As of the end of November, the Personal Genome Project has a newly-designed and user-friendly website. Compare the OLD site and the NEW site - what an improvement! Misha Angrist, aka genomeboy.com and one of the “First 10″ aptly called the site “PGP 2.0″.
The new site is extremely well organized and […]
27 November 2007 – 8:42 am
PLoS Genetics has a new paper (PLoS Genet 3(11): e185. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030185) that examines autosomal microsatellite markers (repeating units of base pairs) from Native American DNA:
“We examined genetic diversity and population structure in the American landmass using 678 autosomal microsatellite markers genotyped in 422 individuals representing 24 Native American populations sampled from North, Central, and […]
15 November 2007 – 3:00 am
Forty advanced placement science students at Soldan International High School in St. Louis have submitted their DNA for testing with the National Geographic Society’s Genographic project. An article in the St. Louis-Post Dispatch highlights some of the statements made by the students and faculty:
“Many times students don’t see the relevance of what […]
14 November 2007 – 3:00 am
Update: Ugo Perego is not affiliated withh the website mentioned in the last two sentences.
Did Joseph Smith father children with any of his plural wives? The Deseret News has a lengthy article about recent efforts by a geneticist to answer the long-debated question about the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.
Ugo Perego, […]
18 October 2007 – 3:00 am
Genome Technology Online mentioned the new partnership between DNAPrint Genomics, Inc. and BioServe, a company that offers “the Global Repository®, a growing library of over 600,000 human DNA, tissue and serum samples linked to detailed clinical and demographic data from 140,000 consented and anonymized patients from four continents.”
As part of the partnership, DNAPrint will […]
21 September 2007 – 8:20 am
I’ve spoken before about the enormous effect that affordable SNP and whole-genome sequencing will have on genetic genealogy. In that previous article, I mentioned a study using SNP analysis to identify a person’s ancestry based on autosomal DNA (all the nuclear non-sex DNA). Another study, released today in PLoS Genetics, used SNP […]
