The coming conundrum of home DNA testing
Often, when we get into these big picture discussions, we call upon our friend Jonathan Zittrain. He’s co-founder and co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He teaches in the law school there AND the computer sciences department. So, you know, smart dude.
Jonathan says that information that once took piles of research money and teams of university researchers to piece together is becoming increasingly easy to find and work with. While lots of parts of the human genome remain mysterious, there is some low hanging fruit as well.
As a result, it’s going to be easier for you or me with a home testing kit to find out our susceptibility to Parkinson’s or heart disease. At the same time, all sorts of social media and entertainment based applications will be brought out. Jonathan envisions an app where your phone will alert you if someone within 200 yards of your present position might be within ten steps on your family tree.
Also in this show, Wikileaks Haiku. A French hacking site ran the texts of the Wikileaks cable through software that looks for unintentional hidden haikus. We have some over at the blog.
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