Comments on: Genome Browsers: The Book of Life Isn’t Open Access

By: Cody Walker

Sat, 17 Oct 2015 15:26:15 +0000

For another angle on the collection of genetic information, consider how complicit these services (23andMe, ancestry.com) are with law enforcement.
“Both [these sites] stipulate in their privacy policies that they will turn information over to law enforcement if served with a court order”.

It’s not explicit that these sites have given over private genetic information to law enforcement, but why wouldn’t they?

Both sites also have the option to remove your genetic information from the database. However, their data-storage practices seem completely opaque – there’s no way to verify that they actually do it.

“[T]he fact that your signing up for 23andMe or Ancestry.com means that you and all of your current and future family members could become genetic criminal suspects is not something most users probably have in mind when trying to find out where their ancestors came from”.

further reading:
http://fusion.net/story/215204/law-enforcement-agencies-are-asking-ancestry-com-and-23andme-for-their-customers-dna/

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By: Niki Lambros

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 18:01:38 +0000

Here’s a short extract specifically describing how non-coding DNA elements work

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By: Niki Lambros

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 16:48:12 +0000

Over a summer a couple of years ago, I watched this fantastic lecture series by Stanford Professor Robert Sapolsky; it’s basically 25 videos of his course, “Human Behavioral Biology”, and if you’re like me and didn’t get quite enough science in your education, I’d recommend checking them out (even if you did, they’re worth watching for the way he helps you both to connect with and be skeptical of new theories and research). They really caught me up to speed and made it possible to read more widely with understanding on genes, genetics and brain science. (The first lecture will lead you to all the rest)

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