Author: David Bradley

My wife’s mother is very keen to trace her family tree and has dug up roots as far back as the early 18th century with possible hints at some ancestors dating back to the late 1600s. She has quite a rare and locally focused maiden name, so it has been a little easier for her than it would be for someone in England called Smith. Personally, I gave up any notion of trying to find my ancestors as my name, while not incredibly common is not rare, meaning as it does “broad field” and so is quite widespread in its various forms.

However, a group of computer scientists, mathematicians, and biologists from around the world have developed a new computer algorithm that could help anyone trace their genetic ancestry in minutes without any prior knowledge of their background. This will not, of course, help you find great, great, great grandfather Bartholemew or whoever, but it could provide important insights into your genetic heritage and the true origins of your germ line.

The new program is unique in that it searches for specific DNA markers, single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips), using nothing more than a DNA DNA sample collected by simple cheek swab. The researchers, led by Petros Drineas of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, used genetic data from previous studies to perform and confirm their research, including the new HapMap database, which scientists are using to find variations in the human genome.

“The program will be a valuable tool for understanding our genetic ancestry and targeting drugs and other medical treatments because it might be possible that these can affect people of different ancestry in very different ways,” explains Drineas. The program will also help us understand our unique backgrounds and assist historians and anthropologists in studying the origins of different populations as well as how our global society evolved.

So, while it may not help mother-in-law find her great, great, great, great grandfather and add the final twigs to her individual family tree, the new program (details in Plos Genetics) could lead to a wider understanding our wider genetic heritage, which could lead to the keenly sought personalized medicine. If researchers can uncover the minute genetic details that set each of us apart, biomedical research and treatments can be better customized for each individual, Drineas adds.

Sharp-eyed readers may have spotted that, once established, Sciencebase moved on from a simplistic static site to a CMS-driven blog. As such, some of the pages (with a small p as opposed to a WordPress big P) don’t have the acoutrements of the CMS. This isn’t deliberate, it’s an artefact of the way I set up Sciencebase way-back when.

Here are a few that have already made the grade, hopping from an early edition of Elemental Discoveries (the proto-Sciencebase ezine) to the fully fledged CMS – Touch Wood – A Guide to Viagra Louts, the story of Viagra, The Real Butterfly Effect, how the physical structure of butterfly wings is helping technologists create new optically functional materials, and Scientific Stereotypes, in which I discussed children’s perception of scientists and whether or not that perception matters to science.

There are dozens more feature articles in the Sciencebase archives outside the blog system, which you can access using the Science Articles link in the menu above.

A criticism levelled at the Sciencebase blog recently was that the subject matter is too diverse (check out the category list in the menu, to see what they mean) and that I, as blogger-in-chief on this humble site, simply alight on a subject of interest, almost at random (a random list under the heading Posts from the Past can be found in the menu), and fire off a short item about said subject (take you pick). Another reviewer tells me, rather positively I think, that the site is like a one-man New Scientist, and yet another suggests that although some of the posts are a bit long, there are plenty of subjects I don’t cover that I really ought to, and sometimes, perish the thought, I get things inadvertently not quite right…or even wrong!

Well, as they say, you cannot please all of the people all of the time. However, I’ve been blogging, in one sense or another, on subjects that interest me for almost two decades for dozens of different publications who more often than not come back for more and tell me that their readers are very happy with the words I produce. If the subjects I choose to write about on Sciencebase, my personal blog, are not to everyone’s taste 100% of the time, then, I’m afraid that’s just the nature of blogging.

I read dozens and dozens of blogs, sometimes it seems like thousands, usually via RSS, on a daily basis. I have to admit that not all of those I subscribe to are fascinating, in-depth, and unique 100% of the time. But, they do provide me with insights and inspiration into a wide range of subjects much of the time. Occasionally, they make me as angry as a least one recent commentator feels about Sciencebase.

But, like I say, a blog is personal. I write it for me first off and hope that it entertains or informs others across the blogosphere. Some of the posts are flippant, shallow, puerile even, some are more profound, and some of them reflect additional thoughts and comments from the various scientists I interview for the other publications I write for and link to.

I presume that a few of the more than 2500 regular RSS subscribers served each day, the average 8000-plus daily visitors who kindly turn up at my virtual door, and the many uncounted readers who see syndicated versions of this site on Techdispenser.com and elsewhere, actually quite like my seemingly random choice of subjects, appreciate my efforts at a unique and honest writing style, and find my alleged attempts at a one-man science portal to be, to some degree, informative, useful, and fun. If that sounds pretentious, then be thankful I didn’t use the words stakeholder, leverage, or incentivize.