23andMe

"Has anybody shared their 23andme results with their physician? Was it useful?" - Spidra Webster from Bookmarklet

A MacOS genealogy program. Not as well known as Reunion, but not as expensive, either. - Spidra Webster

"Worried that your genetic information could be revealed? You should be, says Harvard geneticist George Church. But it doesn't have to keep you from participating in genetic studies. DNA privacy has been a subject of concern this week, as a team of geneticists reported Thursday in the journal Science that it was able to figure out the names of people who had donated their DNA to research -- even though test subjects' identities were stripped from their genomic data. Using information posted to genealogy websites and other publicly available Internet resources, the Whitehead Institute researchers were able to ferret out the names of nearly 50 people, suggesting that it may be easier than many had previously believed for a motivated hacker to match a test subject's DNA to his or her identity. "Nobody can promise privacy," one scientist who wasn't involved with the study told the Los Angeles Times. (Our coverage of the report is available through the related story links at left.) Church,... more... - Spidra Webster from Bookmarklet

"Scouring information available to anyone with an Internet connection, a team of genetic sleuths deduced the names of dozens of supposedly anonymous people who had their DNA analyzed for scientific and medical research. The snooping feat, which took advantage of genealogy websites that let people compare their DNA to search for relatives, was in full compliance with federal privacy regulations. Experts said it underscored a stark reality about genetic privacy in the age of social media: Don't count on it. "Nobody can promise privacy," said Mildred Cho, who heads up Stanford University's Center for Integration of Research on Genetics and Ethics, and wasn't involved with the study. Whitehead Institute geneticist Yaniv Erlich and his team, who described their work Thursday in the journal Science, didn't provide a complete recipe that would help others ferret out the identities of research volunteers. Nor did they divulge the names of the people they were able to unmask. Since the first... more... - Spidra Webster from Bookmarklet

I guess if I read further there are more populations than the 22 that they analyze. But I refuse that information. ALIEN!!!! - Rachel Lea Fox

I did Connect My DNA (Groupon deal for $20!) - mostly, I'm Irish and Scottish. Planning to do 23andme as well. So cool! I'm honored to know someone who's part alien. ;) - Bash

"Take a moment to look back at the ten most interesting and significant genetic findings of 2012 or at least the ones that drew our attention. In the last 12 months we’ve seen huge strides in genetic research giving us new insight into serious conditions such as Alzheimer’s as well as new treatments for cystic fibrosis. And in the last year scientists have made huge leaps in our understanding of the human genome itself with the culmination of a massive study of the so-called uncharted non-coding portions of our DNA — the ENCODE project. Researchers at 23andMe continue to contribute to some of these important findings with groundbreaking work on the relative importance of family health history versus genetics when determining disease risk and a new method to screen for the genetic risk for certain types of blood disorders. It’s been another great year of discovery and here’s our top ten." - Spidra Webster from Bookmarklet

via Anne Bouey - Spidra Webster