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Thanks to Population Genetics, We Can Do Better than the Seven Daughters of Eve

Aug 11, 2008

If Technology Review is right, we may have to stop making fun of those DNA-based ancestry sites. According to this article, the popularity of large-scale studies like GWAS is providing markers that appear to be more indicative of actual ancestry than some of the early-days markers that have been used to date. Of course, if the ancestry companies started using high-density arrays to look at hundreds of thousands of regions across the genome ... well, then they'd just be 23andMe.

 

Breaking News
The Scan

Pig Organ Transplants Considered

The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Food and Drug Administration may soon allow clinical trials that involve transplanting pig organs into humans.

'Poo-Bank' Proposal

Harvard Medical School researchers suggest people should bank stool samples when they are young to transplant when they later develop age-related diseases.

Spurred to Develop Again

New Scientist reports that researchers may have uncovered why about 60 percent of in vitro fertilization embryos stop developing.

Science Papers Examine Breast Milk Cell Populations, Cerebral Cortex Cellular Diversity, Micronesia Population History

In Science this week: unique cell populations found within breast milk, 100 transcriptionally distinct cell populations uncovered in the cerebral cortex, and more.