Showing posts with label personal information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal information. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2008

I'll show you mine...


23andme is giving a whole new meaning to the profile page of the social network.  Now you can share your genetic information as well as your relationship status and your interests in underwater basket weaving.  If I had a spare $999.00 I would love to try this out.  Anyone want to sponsor it?  

It brings us closer to the time when my (much mocked) relatedness party game becomes a reality.  The game would be to guess the person at the party that was either the most distant or the closest genetically to you - and then use the (I assume) forthcoming Facebook/23andme application to find out who won.  You could also do celebrity variations and so forth.

So, if I show you mine, will you ???


Tuesday, June 26, 2007

(Very) personalized medicine (everything)

You have to love their tagline at the top of their website,

don't panic, we're here to help

So, do you trust Google/23andMe to find and hold all of your genetic secrets? I'd trust them a lot more than Joe Shmoe in I.T... Seriously, if you are afraid Google is setting up some secret clone army bent on world domination, your genetic information really isn't going to help them much anyway. The truth is, they don't really have any incentive to do anything malicious with your personal information. Their famous moniker "don't be evil" isn't just could p.r., its good business - and thats why I actually do trust them. Not too mention that if anyone could actually keep your information safe from those that would do evil with it (perhaps certain governments..) they are about the only group in the world that might stand a chance.

I absolutely can not wait until I can have my whole genome sequenced and can start playing with it. I want to see specifically what differences exist between me and my sister, my cat, my dog, and my plant. I want to know what pills I should take when, if I should be getting tested sooner for prostate cancer, and whether I am more closely related to Socrates or to Gandhi. I want to go to a party and play the 4th cousin game.. who in the room is my closest relative? I want a t-shirt with the damn thing on it!

Never fear knowledge.