There is a lot of buzz these days about 23andMe, a web-based service that helps you read and understand your DNA. After providing a saliva sample using an at-home kit, you can use the service’s interactive tools to shed new light on your distant ancestors, your close family and most of all, yourself.
Links:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/195996541/
http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-12/ff_genomics
Beside that I have to overcome my scepticisme with respect to whether 23andme actually will be able to tell me anything useful or scientific valid, more importantly I will have to overcome my fear that the DNA test and the matching of it against the service’s data about DNA combinations that predicts genetics defects will not tell me that I am goiing to be terminal ill or even die soon.
This kind of scientific progress really poses difficult questions. How much do we really want to know about our future (and about or past). True, some of this information will be good as it will help us to preprare for or maybe even prevent things that might otherwise kill us. But we might also get information about things that we cannot change. Do I want to know that I or my kids have a very high probability of becoming terminaly ill before a certain age?
By the end of the day, you cannot stop scientific progress and we will have to cope with getting this type of information whether we like or not. And we will learn to cope with that as always before.
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