genomeboy.com

Will Saletan parses last week’s paper on sexually antagonistic selection as an explanation for the persistence of male homosexuality through the ages:

Can genes account for these patterns? To find out, the authors posit several possible mechanisms and compute their effects over time. They conclude that only one theory fits the data. The theory is called “sexually antagonistic selection.” It holds that a gene can be reproductively harmful to one sex as long as it’s helpful to the other. The gene for male homosexuality persists because it promotes—and is passed down through—high rates of procreation among gay men’s mothers, sisters, and aunts.

The authors write:

We show that only the two-locus genetic model with at least one locus on the X chromosome, and in which gene expression is sexually antagonistic (increasing female fitness but decreasing male fitness), accounts for all known empirical data.

Bring on the genome-wide association studies…

As usual, Daniel has an outstanding roundup of the latest developments in the personal genomics kerfuffle (or is it a saga?). If Navigenics wins its argument in California — i.e., interpreting a test is not itself a test and therefore not subject to regulation as such — then will we finally be able to move on to the next existential crisis?

In the immortal words of Woody Allen, “I’d call you a sadistic sodomistic necrophile, but that’s beating a dead horse.”

I have tried to keep my big fat pie-hole shut about the ongoing battle over regulation of personal genomics companies and instead ply you all (my seven readers!) with genomic fluff because 1) I selfishly want to save a lot of the corporate personal genomics stuff for my book; 2) plenty of other folks have weighed in; and 3) I keep waiting for the curtain to fall on this theater of the absurd. Apparently the latter is not going to happen anytime soon:

Ann Willey, director of the Office of Laboratory Policy for New York State, who is both a board-certified geneticist and a lawyer, spoke last week at CHI’s Beyond Genome conference in San Francisco. “I think of this genomic profiling paradigm…as really a star,” Willey said. “By the time we get done regulating it…we’re going to have to force it into a globe and shear off some of its sparkling and promising aspects.”

***

Willey said regulation of these companies could potentially fall into several different categories, including the practice of medicine, or a laboratory, or information management. “The jury is out, we haven’t decided what it is,” said Willey. “Once we make it a duck, it better quack like a duck. No matter what box we put it in, we put constraints on it… But we don’t want to leave them in no box, because we have no oversight.” Willey said her office regularly sends warning letters to laboratory testing facilities, from tests on human genes to microbial flora. “We’re not picking on this [genome analysis] industry. We really want to make this work.

“But I’m from the government and I can’t always help.”

Hoo wee! Really fills one with confidence, don’t it? I only wish I’d stuck around Beyond Genome long enough to see the show.

George Carlin, R.I.P.

BALTIMORE—On Monday, scientists at Johns Hopkins University isolated the gene which causes homosexuality in human males, promptly segregating it from normal, heterosexual genes. “I had suspected that gene was queer for a long time now. There was just something not quite right about it,” said team leader Dr. Norbert Reynolds…Among the factors Reynolds cited as evidence of the gene’s gayness: its pinkish hue; meticulously frilly perimeter; and faint but distinct, perfume-like odor.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

“This is just a neat human-interest story about a particular couple using the reproductive capabilities they have,” said Mara Kiesling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington. “There’s really nothing remarkable” about the Beatie pregnancy, she said.

The gruff DNA of the Yankees had been passed on to him, yet it did not travel well when he took over the Mets, who have no residual ethos.

- George Vescey on fired Mets manager Willie Randolph

Privacy is changing rapidly and in ways we can barely comprehend. Will we live our lives differently, fearing that our everyday social contacts are going to wind up in some great database? How will the world change when group photos snapped at parties all turn into misleading edges in that permanent, all-encompassing social graph? Can society limit the abuse of personal information without resorting to Internet censorship that would violate the First Amendment?

Yes, already happening, and no.

(hat tip)

On a dark coastal highway, nucleic acid in my hair
Warm smell of venture capital, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw blood, spit and sperm
My head grew heavy and my wallet grew light
I had to start a firm

There she stood in the lab bay;
Loading an agarose gel
And I was thinking to myself,
’This could be DNA or this could be cells’
Then she lit up a lightbox and she showed me the way
There were voices on the conference call,
I thought I heard them say…

Welcome to the Hotel Varioma
Such a competitive race
Such a competitive space
Plenty of room at the Hotel Varioma
Every fiscal year, you can find it here

Her tree is ancestry-twisted, Affy she aided and abetted
She got a lot of discrete, discreet traits, that she calls vetted
How they drool in the test tubes, sweet summer spit
Some drool to empower, some drool to transmit

So I called up the FDA,
’Please give me a sign’
They said, ’We haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen ninety-nine,’
And still enforcement discretion is far away,
Shut you down in the middle of the night
Before you hear them say…

Welcome to the Hotel Varioma
Such a competitive race
Such a competitive space
Plenty of room at the Hotel Varioma
What a Judas kiss, better cease and desist

Genotypes we’re revealing,
Your DNA’s on ice
And she said ’This is all just home brew here, it’s not a medical device’
And in the judge’s chambers,
They gathered for the meal
They slap it with their regulations,
But they just can’t close the deal

Last thing I remember, I was
Checking my results
I had to find the passage back
To the world of consenting adults
’Relax,’ said the house doc,
‘We are programmed to protest.
You can market anywhere you like,
But you can never test!’