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Magazine
In the June 23 SN: Emmy Noether gets her due, the 411 on ancestry testing, bonobo birthing buddies, a mysterious neutrino surplus, the oldest known lizard fossil, genetic genealogy in police work, Pluto’s dunes and more.
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Experiences
What I actually learned about my family after trying 5 DNA ancestry tests
06/13/2018 - 14:41 Ancestry, GeneticsCommercials abound for DNA testing services that will help you learn where your ancestors came from or connect you with relatives. I’ve been interested in my family history for a long time. I knew basically where our roots were: the British Isles, Germany and Hungary. But the ads tempted me to dive deeper.
Previous experience taught me that different genetic testing companies can yield...
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Feature
DNA testing can bring families together, but gives mixed answers on ethnicity
06/13/2018 - 14:36 Genetics, Ancestry, Science & SocietyMichael Douglas, a new resident of southern Maryland, credits genetic testing for helping him find his heritage — and a family he knew very little about.
Douglas, 43, is adopted. He knew his birth mother’s name and had seen a birth certificate stating his birth name: Thomas Michael McCarthy. Over the years, Douglas had tried off and on to find his birth family, mostly by looking for his...
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News
Why using genetic genealogy to solve crimes could pose problems
06/07/2018 - 14:00 Genetics, Science & SocietyPolice are using a new type of DNA sleuthing, called genetic genealogy. Already the technique has caught murder and rape suspects in California and Washington. While solving the cases has given cause for celebration, the tactics used in catching the alleged culprits have many privacy and civil rights experts worried.
Closing the Golden State Killer case (SN Online: 4/29/18) and the...
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Soapbox
At-home telomere testing is not a reliable marker of aging, researcher says
06/07/2018 - 10:00 Health, Genetics, CellsStay younger, longer. Great idea. But direct-to-consumer test kits that promise to gauge a person’s biological age by analyzing a drop of blood are not worth the $100 or so investment, says oncologist Mary Armanios. The tests measure the length of telomeres, the bits of DNA that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes. But the consumer tests are unreliable and can be misinterpreted, Armanios...
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Science & the Public
Privacy and consumer genetic testing don’t always mix
06/05/2018 - 07:00 Genetics, Science & SocietyFor a few hundred dollars and a spit sample, you too could take a journey of genetic self-discovery. You may learn some things, but what are you giving away?
Today, hundreds of companies offer to analyze your DNA, or parts of it, to let you in on everything from your health risks and ancestry to more dubious traits like intelligence or athletic ability (SN: 5/26/18, p. 20). The direct-to...
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Feature
What consumer DNA data can and can’t tell you about your risk for certain diseases
06/03/2018 - 06:00 GeneticsResults from Family Tree DNA, a genetic testing company, helped Lara Diamond find a branch of her family she thought had been lost in the Holocaust. Those 2012 results brought dozens of new people into her life.
Eager to find more relatives, Diamond, now 42, a professional genealogist in Baltimore, decided to try out all the companies that offer geneaological DNA testing to see what else...
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News
Guidelines call for limits to whole genome testing for fetuses
05/31/2018 - 07:00 GeneticsDecades ago, pregnant women had to wait about 40 weeks before knowing much about their baby. But swiftly moving technology offers increasingly detailed peeks into the womb.
Beyond generating adorable 3-D ultrasounds of scrunched-up faces, researchers can now analyze a fetus’s full genome from a simple blood draw from mom. But these genome-wide prenatal tests are not ready for prime time...
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Editor's Note
The power of great editors, their lessons and legacy
Wouldn’t it be grand to have a test that could predict our risk of dreaded diseases like cancer? Signs of such a future exist, but it’s not here yet, as senior writer Tina Hesman Saey explains in the second of our three-part series on direct-to-consumer genetic testing. The tests available today fall short in delivering what we would actually want to know. The raw data are gibberish...05/30/2018 - 07:15 Science & Society, Genetics -
Reviews & Previews
The history of heredity makes for a fascinating, and chilling, read
05/29/2018 - 09:00 Genetics, History of Science, Science & SocietyShe Has Her Mother’s LaughCarl ZimmerDutton, $30
The Elephant Man, novelist Pearl S. Buck and Phoebus, god of the sun, all find their way into science writer Carl Zimmer’s latest book. In She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, Zimmer uses famous moments in history — and Greek mythology — to explain genetics and how researchers have come to understand heredity and try to manipulate it.
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News
Genetic sleuthing again IDs a murder suspect in a cold case
05/23/2018 - 10:42 Genetics, Ancestry, Science & SocietyFor the second time in less than a month, DNA probes of family trees in a public database have helped police catch a murder suspect.
On May 17, detectives in Washington arrested 55-year-old William Earl Talbott II of Seatac for the 1987 double murder of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg. A new DNA sleuthing technique called genetic genealogy led to Talbott’s capture. His arrest came just...