TalkWhat We’re Talking About This Week
Get Your Genes On! Who’s watching the new TV show, Heroes? According to a local journalist, it reflects a cultural meme that sweeping the nation. From X-Men to ancestry DNA testing, people are getting their genes on.
Old Viruses Resurrected Through DNA. Is it Jurassic Park or Xerox Parc? A team of French scientists has rebuilt a virus that infected our ancestors several million years ago, and get this, they did so from current human DNA. The reconstructed virus is called “Phoenix” — a lovely literary allusion — and will be used to study the role of HERVs in cancer. HERVs, or , or human endogenous retroviruses, are viral DNA that are embedded in our genome. Scientists estimate that 8% of our genome is made up of this viral DNA.
Troublesome Gene Names Get the Boot. Who wants to be told they’re carrying the radical fringe gene?
The Dot-Com Bubble (and Bust) Reconsidered. Some of us at DNA Direct worked for start-ups back in the 90s, myself included. This article is casts a new light on the industry then, and is reassuring for us now.
Technorati Tags: ancestry, genetic testing, dna, virus, hervs, human endogenous retrovirus, human genome, phoenix virus, nomenclature, technology industry
