April 4, 2013
Mounting evidence points to brain trauma as a risk factor for mental decline. Football players who’ve had multiple concussions perform worse on tests of brain function and are more likely to have memory problems later on. Repeated blows to the head can also cause certain types of dementia -- medically [...]
February 28, 2013
February 28 is Rare Disease Day — a concept first initiated by the European Rare Disease Organization (EURORDIS) and now recognized around the world. Around 6,800 rare diseases have been identified and up to 80% of them have a genetic origin. 23andMe provides genetic health reports for many of these [...]
February 22, 2013
Image by Mariana Ruiz LadyofHats [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons New research suggests that a once-fatal congenital heart defect — sometimes called “blue baby syndrome” — is influenced by genetic factors that are broadly found in the general population. Different heart malformations lead to [...]
February 4, 2013
A study published recently in Science by Susanne Horn and colleagues is a noteworthy example of hypothesis-driven science done right. It exemplifies how seemingly obscure findings can lead to new hypotheses and provide insight into human health and disease. Horn and her colleagues studied a family prone to [...]
November 26, 2012
The story first broke in the summer of 2012 — two separate research groups, one from the University of Washington and the other from Stanford, announced within weeks of each other that they had successfully sequenced a human fetus and done so noninvasively. Scientist Jacob O Kitzman, who led the [...]
October 12, 2012
Dave Hinds is a Principal Scientist in Statistical Genetics. 23andMe is passionate about research on a group of rare blood disorders called myeloproliferative neoplasms, or MPNs. Physicians who study these disorders consider them to be blood cancers, though individual prognoses can vary widely — some [...]
October 9, 2012
Amy Kiefer is a Survey Research Manager at 23andMe. She joined the company in 2008. What do nearsightedness, stretch marks, and motion sickness have to do with each other? They don’t appear to be genetically related — at least not according to our in-house statistical geneticists — but all of them are [...]
September 28, 2012
September is Menopause Awareness Month. It’s important for postmenopausal women to be aware of their increased risk for a variety of health conditions including iron overload in those with hereditary hemochromatosis. Hereditary hemochromatosis is a common genetic condition that makes a person more prone [...]
September 17, 2012
Okay students, pencils down! A week ago Friday we posted the second in a three-part series of educational courses for back-to-school season. The entries are now in. You can see how you did by comparing with the correct answers below. Also, a special congratulations goes out to Damien Marsic for being [...]
September 11, 2012
For back-to-school month we’re running a series of posts on genetic factors that may impact learning. Here we describe a variant that may influence a person’s ability to learn from their mistakes. In a prior post we discuss a variant linked to non-verbal IQ performance. Attribution: [...]
