September 26, 2012
The 23rd Chromosome This month we’ve run a series of quizzes for the back-to-school season. Here’s are the answers to our third and final quiz. Congratulations to Toni K., who was selected randomly from the large group of test takers who got all the answers right. You can see how you did by comparing [...]
September 20, 2012
by Emily Chang, Joanna Mountain and Mike Macpherson Click on the image above for a larger version of this chart, which shows that some ancestry combinations are more common than others in the 23andMe database. Given the “melting pot” nature of the United States, it is not surprising that most [...]
September 19, 2012
We know you’ve been studying hard at 23andMe U., but you’ve still got one more quiz to complete. This one hinges on some of the genetic differences between men and women. So before you matriculate, here’s the last quiz. Now don’t sweat it, you’ll do fine and we’ll even give you some hints [...]
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 [...]
October 23, 2009
There are over 50,000 people in North America who define themselves as Hutterites, though you probably have never met one. One of the main branches of the Anabaptists, Hutterites live in self-sustaining communities throughout the rural northwestern United States and Canada. Like their sister branches, the [...]
October 14, 2009
The Near East – a swath of land that encompasses the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and everywhere in between – has been populated by humans longer than anywhere else in the world save Africa. It is where agriculture was born and spread into Eurasia. It is where the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia [...]
September 2, 2009
There are many examples around the world of two distinct ethnic groups living side by side. Sometimes these groups co-exist peacefully. Other times they do not. Often two groups' differences - along with circumstantial factors - lead to tension between them and sometimes violence. The Hutus and Tutsis [...]
July 20, 2009
It may be you've heard a rumor that males are on the brink of extinction. Whatever you may think of that prospect, the rumor is false. But over the past decade, numerous studies have hinted that the Y chromosome, a male necessity, is going the way of the dodo. Though other studies have suggested this [...]
June 19, 2009
Only 250 miles separates the island of Madagascar from the southeast coast of Africa. The short distance between the two land masses traditionally led the outside world to assume that the native inhabitants of Madagascar - known as the Malagasy - originally came from the west, probably from the present day [...]
June 11, 2009
Science is dynamic and ever changing. As new research is published, theories get revised, and hypotheses retested. The field of genetic ancestry is no exception: The flurry of published research just in the last five years has been staggering, and we can now piece together the histories of many groups from [...]
