James D. Watson who helped crack the DNA code half a century ago, last week became the first person handed the full text of his own DNA on a small computer disk. But he won't be the last. Full Story »
Posted by Leo Romero
This is a cute story...but it only touches the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and the iceberg is not cute. The quotes that imply that our knowledge of the genome changes rapidly and what we think we know today may be different tomorrow are quite accurate and should serve as a warning. The remainder of the story is interesting, but superficial. If we know our genomes, we can select against traits we don't want to pass on: think of the young woman carrying a breast cancer gene who becomes unmarriageable, or the older man with an Alzheimer disease gene who is abandoned by his family before he develops the disease. Will we use our knowledge to prescreen our fetuses to determine which genetic traits we want to abort? They're already ... More »
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An interesting linkage of past (Watson's DNA) and present (Internet) technologies; I particularly get a charge out of Dr. Watson's wanting to profile "prominent Texans"--a dig at our Commander-in-Chief?
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