Eye on DNA Headlines for 13 November 2007

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted November 13, 2007 in Eye on DNA Headlines

• Doctor Anonymous hosts Grand Rounds – Volume 4 Number 8 from Tucson, Arizona. Dang. Those cacti are huge!

• Sonia Smith of Slate included some of my comments in a round-up of blogs discussing the Sunday New York Times article regarding genetics, race, and prejudice. Also don’t miss this thoughtful comment from Eye on DNA reader Scott. Here’s an excerpt:

  The most frustrating part of this is that the data do not actually support these beliefs. The IQ data from the continent [Africa] is of terrible quality, such Malloy in his defence of James Watson was forced to resort to measures of schooling to shore up his conclusions. (A hint: African schools for the most part do not do a good job of teaching their students: if Malloy had ever been in one, he might have realised that.) But in this gene-crazy age, any explanation that invokes genetics and biology will automatically be privileged over one that invokes environmental effects, even at the New York Times.

• DNA Network member Thomas Goetz of Epidemix attended the Annual Burrill Personalized Medicine Meeting yesterday. My boss, Ryan Phelan of DNA Direct, will be a panel member at today’s session: Patient-centric Medicine – PM from the Patient’s Point of View. I was also honored to contribute to the Burrill Personalized Medicine Report that was distributed to meeting attendees; I wrote on the intersection of consumer genomics and personalized medicine.
• Barry Starr of the QUEST Community Science Blog has more on “gay genes” and says Bobby is more likely to be gay than Greg. So weird because I was trying desperately to remember the middle brother’s name in The Brady Bunch yesterday and had to look it up (it’s Peter played by Christopher Knight).
• I’ve talked mice, dogs, tigers, mules, and other wildlife before so why not mention wild pigs? DNA fingerprinting is being used to identify wild pigs that have been illegally moved from one region of Western Australia to another for “recreational purposes.” I’m assuming that means hunting but you just never know nowadays….

Tags: genetics, genes, dna, personalized medicine, gay genes

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Comment by Doctor Anonymous

2007-11-13 20:48:17

Thanks so much for the link!

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Comment by Doctor Anonymous

2007-11-13 20:52:39

Thanks for the link!

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