genomeboy.com

Emmanuel Chereskin, a biologist at the University of Rochester, said the genetic marker also produces some unique secondary phenotypes among those who carry it. These include long, flowing hair; superior whistling skills; and especially muscular arms and shoulders that may facilitate long bouts of casually leaning against walls. Gwilym’s descendants have also been shown to produce a strong and intoxicating natural musk.

“These individuals are extremely adept at feigning interest in even the most tedious topics,” said Chereskin, referring to an experiment in which men who carry the marker were asked to listen to an attractive woman talk at length about plans for her sister’s upcoming wedding. “Additionally, when properly cued, they will reflexively spin subtle innuendo from even the most banal phraseology.”

Genius.

Many people feel that it is a more elevated act to donate anonymously: not to pick a recipient, in other words, but simply to show up at a hospital and offer one’s kidney, leaving it to the transplant center to assign it to the next person on the list. Sometimes the recipients in these transactions choose not to meet their donors; sometimes they don’t even send a note to say thank you. For a donor to pick a recipient through a service like MatchingDonors can seem, from this perspective, like egotism—playing God by choosing who will live, and encouraging gratefulness by arranging for a relationship with the recipient. But, in a certain literal sense, a nondirected donation is not altruistic in a way that picking a recipient is, because there is no other there. There is no human story, just a principle; the only thing visible to the donor is his own shining deed.

Larissa MacFarquahar on kidney donation in the New Yorker (registration required). Wow. Best nonfiction I’ve read this year.

I’ve always maintained that what happens between two consenting species is nobody’s business, as long as they’re happy.

I was fortunate enough to attend the Big Think forum a couple of weeks ago that included a stimulating session on personal genomics. The panel featured population geneticist and grad school pal Tara Matise as well as PGP-10er Esther Dyson, whose 58th birthday was that very day. Check out this cake.

Deoxyribolicious!

The first big test for GINA? Really?

The DNA test does not reveal an age, but it can reveal whether the player is the son of his claimed parents. Players have been known to find families willing to lend a younger child’s birth certificate so that a player can appear younger.

Miguel Sano, a top prospect in the Dominican Republic, was given DNA tests and a bone-scan procedure to help confirm that he was 16, he said in a telephone interview from his hometown, San Pedro de Macoris.

The DNA tests were conducted on Sano and his parents to determine if he was their son, he said. Sano’s sister underwent the bone scan as well, to help confirm that she was his older sister, and not a younger sibling whose birth certificate was used to falsify Sano’s age.

“In the eyes of baseball, there’s a huge difference between 16 and 19 years old,” said an international scout for a major league team. “It’s night and day. This is a runaway train they’re trying to put a lasso around.”

As ever, youth is wasted on the young. Play them off, son.

The report said 85 percent of science association members surveyed said public ignorance of science was a major problem. And by large margins they deride as only “fair” or “poor” the coverage of science by newspapers and television.

Only 3 percent of the scientists said they “often” spoke to reporters.

In a telephone news conference announcing the survey, Alan I. Leshner, chief executive of the science association, said scientists must find new ways to engage with the public.

“One cannot just exhort ‘we all agree you should agree with us,’ ” Mr. Leshner said. “It’s a much more interactive process that’s involved. It’s time consuming and can be tedious. But it’s very important.”

Hmmm. The head of the most important science organization in the country, if not the world, starts from the premise that educating and interacting with the public about science is time consuming and “can be tedious.” I can’t imagine why so much of the citizenry knows and cares so little about what we do. Can you?

As usual, I am pathetically late on this (just throw me the odd crumb, once in a while, dude). A couple of months ago the attorneys at Charlotte-based Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, P.A. launched the Genomics Law Report:

The Genomics Law Report focuses on the legal implications of important developments in the fields of genomics and personalized medicine — including key litigation, legislative, regulatory and policymaking activities — in order to facilitate understanding of the complicated and shifting legal landscape governing genomic and personalized medicine commerce and research.

RBH has provided legal services to the Personal Genome Project and one of its attorneys, Dan Vorhaus, helped articulate the PGP’s initial vision for open consent.

Moms are more than sources of existential angst and mitochondrial DNA. My friend Nicole Chaison has written a book that demonstrates this with unmatched wit and aplomb. It’s called The Passion of the Hausfrau and if you are a parent or ever had parents, then you should obtain a copy post haste.

Genetic Future has everything you need to know about 23andMe’s foray into genetic research on ten common diseases. Here are what I consider to be the nut grafs:

It’s easy to be cynical about 23andMe’s motives in launching this initiative - this is, after all, a profit-making exercise rather than a research charity - but I suspect that many academics will be watching 23andMe’s progress in this venture with considerable interest. Modern genomics studies require mind-bogglingly large numbers of samples to achieve the power required to find subtle genetic associations, and recruiting those numbers of patients is far from easy. If 23andMe’s model proves successful in recruiting and maintaining large communities of patients, I suspect large academic consortia will at least begin to consider the possibility of pursuing similar approaches.

That actually puts 23andMe in a potentially lucrative position. In order for academic consortia to pursue the 23andMe model, they need to be in a position to return comprehensive results from genome scans to their patients and controls. However, providing such complex information to a lay audience is extremely difficult, and probably beyond the means of most academic groups. That means (as I noted back in March) there’s a potentially massive possible market for 23andMe here in providing a mediation service for returning research data to patients, and for providing the resources required to keep participants engaged actively in the research community.

Ever since 23andMe began shouting from the rooftops that it wanted to do research, there has been more than a little suspicion about what the company was “really” up to. I think Daniel is absolutely right: in the simplest terms, the company believes that there is an unmet need in genetic research (subject ascertainment, data collection, return of results to subjects) that it can begin to help satisfy and in doing so it will generate revenue. Some might argue that there are already perfectly fine mechanisms for informed consent and human subjects research in genetics. GWAS are great! The status quo rocks!

Others, ahem, have a different view.