October 22, 2010
In our last post, Sheridan* responded to her potential fifth cousin Akina and discovered that she has a potential second cousin through 23andMe’s Relative Finder feature. All of this is exciting, but she’s definitely starting to feel her lack of genealogy experience catching up with her. When she logs [...]
October 15, 2010
We’ve been following Sheridan’s* journey through the ancestry features at 23andMe over the last few weeks. Because she was adopted with no record of her biological parents, every piece of information has been eye-opening for her. So far, she’s learned that her maternal haplogroup is H2a, meaning that [...]
October 8, 2010
In her first ancestry foray, Sheridan* learned about her Maternal Line. Through her friend Mesut, she also learned about the Paternal Line feature. But these analyses only told her about a tiny part of her DNA. Other features at 23andMe use DNA contained in the other 22 pairs of chromosomes -- called [...]
September 29, 2010
Meet Sheridan*. She's a 27 year old female who signed up for 23andMe during one of our sales. Adopted at eight months, she has no information about her biological roots and the adoption agency has no records other than where she was found -- on the steps of a church in a small town near Atlanta, Georgia. She [...]
September 16, 2010
Genetic testing is not a concept that most people encounter outside of popular TV shows and so when you hear about services such as 23andMe’s, you might be wondering what exactly it is you’re getting. Even after you’ve signed up and have your data back, you might not know where to start exploring or how [...]
July 8, 2010
As we have previously detailed here in the Spittoon, 23andMe received a letter from the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the United States House of Representatives asking for details of our genetic testing services. We received a second letter from the Committee asking for more information about the [...]
June 24, 2010
23andMe is proud to announce the first publication to come out of 23andWe, our novel participant-driven research program. Our results, which encompass replications of previous findings as well as newly discovered associations, appear online today in PLoS Genetics. 23andWe is a web-based research [...]
June 8, 2010
We recently determined that a number of new 23andMe customer samples were incorrectly processed by our contracted lab. We want to clarify what happened with the sample errors, how it happened and what we're doing to prevent it from happening again. Providing each and every one of our customers with [...]
April 23, 2010
Well, maybe we should say DNA weekend. Sunday is officially DNA day, but a lot of festivities are happening today to accommodate classroom schedules. Check your local libraries and science museums to see if there are any activities planned near you (The Spittoon assembled a few here). Today everyone [...]
April 12, 2010
DNA Day was created in 2003 by concurrent (Senate and House) congressional resolution to celebrate two important milestones in the study of genetics: the 50th anniversary of the description of the double-helix structure of DNA by James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick and the completion of the Human [...]
