Old Dog, New Tricks

I've been working on my LifeEthics.org website and got most of the boxes lined up and the links all work! But the cool thing is that I've made a window for "Bioethics Headlines" as part of the main page.

Not bad for an old lady who learned to type at 40, if I do say so myself. BTW, Microsoft Publisher makes a decent web page composer.

Genealogy for fun and profit

The blogs are buzzing over new home tests to access your gene profile.
Biology in a Digital World and the Women's Bioethics Blog are talking about the $999 test.

However, the genealogy lists are doing testing for family lines (the tests are sold by the website) instead of the old way of talking and searching church records. See the groups of families who are following the heredity of the men by surname and markers on their Y chromosomes (passed only from men to their sons, since girls don't have a Y chromosome) and both men and women by their mitochondrial DNA (passed from mother to all her children in the oocyte cytoplasm) at Ancestry.com DNA, where you can buy your own test and join your free family group list serve or message board at RootsWeb.

I do wonder about the consequences of some of the tests, that are bound to reveal that some one fell off the family tree.

And I worry more about all the false positives for genetic abnormalities that will show up. The last I heard (in a conference, so no link), there were lots of "abnormalities" that we find on our tests - but we don't know the significance of most of them. In other words there are variations in genes that we have not tied to diseases.

But I did see one great post, a man who said that he would never test his children - they are his children, no matter what the DNA. I wish I could find it again, because the man's my hero.

Free Access Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

If you'd like to learn how little you know (except you, Rebecca of Mary Meets Dolly), Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology is offering free access this month, with free registration.

The free registration itself is valuable - because you'll be able to access some of the news@nature items and receive Tables of Contents of many of the Nature Group of journals each month.

The titles this month include "Stem cells: Fledglings escape from the niche," "Post-translational modification: A smooth handover," and a review of "Research Highlight: In the News: A distinct human signature". Some of which I think I understand.

Edited March 6, 2007 for the wrong name of the owner of "Mary Meets Dolly," which I tried to change from Rebecca to Rachel.

Nature is free this month

Not the wide open outdoors, but the Journal.

Full free content for the January, 2007, issue of the Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology & Hepatology, an official publication of the American College of Gastroenterology.

If you want to read about treatment guidelines for your tummy upsets or about Napolean's Gastric Carcinoma, here's your free sample issue.