DNA Consultants’ blog

Did Neanderthals Linger in Russia’s Far North?

By Michael Balter

Science 13 May 2011:
Vol. 332 no. 6031 p. 778
DOI: 10.1126/science.332.6031.778

If you think haplogroup testing for Native American DNA is in sad shape, you should look at autosomal testing. It has been practically nonexistent. Even the major 2007 study by Wang et al. has glaring gaps and methodological quandaries(1).

A recent comparison of medieval mitochondrial DNA from a Byzantine cemetery with modern populations in Southwest Turkey shows what we have assumed in our population analyses of atDNA 2.0.

Specific Autosomal DNA a key to geographical structure among population

Thursday, April 14, 2011

---

Two reports in the European Journal of Human Genetics underline how specific autosomal DNA can be in revealing the geographical structure among populations. One uses genome-wide data from the Illumina Human Hap300 project to predict the village of origin of a person’s four grandparents given European origins. The other used genotyping from 3,367 individuals from seven different European, mostly British Isles populations to lay bare the detailed population structure and linkage disequilibrium patterns of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales.

Personal genetics: regulatory framework in Europe
from a service provider’s perspective

Keith A Grimaldi, Markus P Look, G Antonio Scioli, Juan Coll Clavero, Stathis Marinos and Tassos Tagaris

European Journal of Human Genetics 19, 382-388 (April 2011) | doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.189

In a paper to be delivered at the American Marketing Association‘s meeting in Washington in June, Elizabeth C. Hirschman estimates that the number of people who have purchased a DNA test now exceeds 1.5 million. Her work suggests that the value of the market (excluding paternity testing) in 2011 will reach nearly $150 million in sales. That seems like too big an industry to escape government oversight, and it’s true that several scientists have targeted the direct-to-the-consumer DNA testing business for criticism, particularly personal genomics companies like 23andme.

Then:  Genes of Old Testament Priests (Cohanim)
Now:  Genetic Traces of Religions in Lebanese and Iranians

Then:  Rare Genetic Disorders in Finnish Mitochondrial Haplotypes (U)
Now:  Genome-Wide Association Studies in Saami

Genome-Sequencing Anniversary

Emergence Petroglyphs Pacific-Wide

Saturday, February 5, 2011

---

Emergence petroglyphs as featured on previous blog posts about the Hopi, Sea Peoples, Hohokam, Fremont Indians and Cherokee (“Haplogroup B and Water Clan Symbols”) have also turned up now in Patagonia in southern Chile, on the tip of the South American continent’s Pacific Coast. They were identified in Hawaii already.