Get your DNA sequenced!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/father-humankind-340-000-years-old-210033011.html

 

I can't open any links right now.

What does that say?

 

"DNA evidence has revealed that the oldest known common male ancestor is 340,000 years old, more than twice as old as previous estimates. New Scientist reports that the sample comes from a recently deceased man named Albert Perry. After the African-American South Carolina man died, one of his relatives submitted a sample of his DNA to a company called Family Tree DNA for analysis."

"All previously compared DNA samples pointed to a common Y chromosome traced back to man who lived between 60,000 and 140,000 years ago. But Perry’s DNA sample broke the trend, not matching up with this common ancestor.

"University of Arizona researcher Michael Hammer says Perry’s DNA suggests there may have been an earlier species of humans that went extinct—but not before interbreeding with the more modern version of man."

 

That's awesome!

 

How interesting

 

Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

 

It's the mitochondrial DNA that they test (mtDNA). I had mine done some years back by Oxford Ancestors (in England), which was founded by Brian Sykes, author of The Seven Daughters of Eve.

The mtDNA test I had done reveals which of the seven, identified early European female ancestors you might be descended from. There are now a lot of other mtDNA testing companies offering their services, and there's one project being sponsored by National Geographic. The research has broadened, to include descendents of those other than just Europeans, particularly since we all came out of Africa in the beginning.

It's really fascinating stuff. In a way, it makes you think about how we're all connected, and where we came from. I'm planning to do the test again someday, now that more information has been compiled from when the test first came out.

-- Nephele

 

It might be quite interesting to have this done but I'd think it fairly important to understand the privacy policies of the company doing the testing, especially if you live in a country where you pay directly for health insurance. Information about your genetic predispositions to various diseases could be used to jack your premiums up, deny insurance completely or deny claims under the rubric of "preexisting conditions", whether you actually have a disease or not. Dr. Evil sits on the BOD of every health insurance company and this kind of information would be invaluable to him.

 

Or they could go the easier route and look at census, marriage, and death certificate info which is public and they already have on everybody.

 

None of these documents have information that can be used to determine the probability of disease though. A death certificate has cause of death info, but following this event, insurance seems unnecessary. Information about your family members cause of death is already used, I expect but one's genetic makeup goes a big step further. I'll give an example of what I mean.

Let's say B's parents both died between the age of 60 and 64 of heart disease. Insurance company can use this information to calculate the probability of B also requiring expensive medical care for heart disease. Perhaps B's parents though also had genes that predisposed them to certain types of cancer, Tay Sachs, or some chronic condition or another, but the disease never manifested itself during their lifetime and they lived never having known about their genetic makeup. They did pass their genes onto B though who now lives in a time where he can have his DNA sequenced.

While the insurance company may decide to charge him a lot more as he grows older because they know the probability of him developing heart disease, if they know that he has some chance of developing something that will affect his health earlier in life - let's say, a genetic marker for soft tissue sarcoma that is most common in teenagers and young adults, B will likely spend a greater portion of his life with poorer health care or if he actually develops such a cancer it will be considered a pre-existing condition and grounds for denial of any medical claims he makes in that regard. In other words, more and more health conditions will become pre-existing conditions if insurance companies are allowed access to this kind of information. If it ever becomes an issue that reaches the courts it will be a difficult case to make that genetic predisposition is not the same as a pre-existing condition (even though it is different) because they already are allowed to use the fact that B's parents died of heart disease so B will probably also suffer from it.

ETA: sorry if that's not well articulated. I'm in a fair bit of pain as I write this and not sure I'm even making sense right now.

 

You're making good sense.