Category Archives: DNA

1. My suspicion was correct. Genetically, I do have a slower metabolism. Dr. Dan described this in scientific terms as an "efficient metabolism," meaning that I store energy more than someone with a fast or "inefficient metabolism."

2. I also have a gene variation for the FTO gene that is linked to a hormone called ghrelin, which controls hunger. My gene variation implies that I am someone who becomes hungry very easily, therefore creating a higher risk of overeating. Dan said that eating small frequent meals throughout the day to control hunger would be important.

3. I also have a gene variation in the APOA2 gene, indicating that I am sensitive to saturated fats, meaning that it sticks to me more easily! I asked Dr. Dan what foods have saturated fats and he said things like animal products, butter, dairy products, palm oil and coconut oil. Coconut oil?! I ate so much coconut oil because of how often it's promoted as a healthy oil. No wonder I was having trouble.

4. I am someone who would benefit from working out later in the day because my CLOCK gene variations imply that I am a night owl. This made perfect sense because I am definitely not a morning person.

5. I am someone who responds well to "high volume training," meaning high sets and reps of weight training. I always thought that lots of cardio would be the key to losing weight. It turns out that it was going to take a lot of strength training. Dan said that the more muscle I built, the more fat I would burn.

6. I am someone who does not switch from burning carbohydrates to burning fat easily. This would mean that I would need to be eating the right balance of macronutrients: Carbs, protein and fat.

7. Dan also said that I have a gene variation that indicates I metabolize caffeine slowly. This means that I would benefit by having a cup of green tea about 30 minutes prior to a workout for optimal energy.

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I Tried A Diet And Fitness Plan Based On My DNA And Couldn't Believe The Results - BuzzFeed News

Since the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, the immense promise of a technology that can revealthe 6 billion letters that make each of us who we are has loomed large asa way to revolutionize nearly every aspect ofhuman health, from what we know about ourselves the day we are born to how to stave offthe day that we die. Butthe ability to peer into the most fundamental biology of a human being has raised a slew of ethical questions and one that is even more simple: when is that information useful?

If people are healthy, the answer seems to be not very often according to a new, four-year clinical trial that exhaustively studied the use of genome sequencing of healthy adultsby a primary care doctor, anticipating the day that this information becomes part of everyones medical record. Learningtheir genomic results didn't appear to harm anyone, butalso didn't provide any clear short-term health benefits -- and it did drive up health spending compared to patients who simply got a detailed family history.

Contrary to longstanding ethicalconcerns that people will suffer psychological ill effects by learning things they don't want to know in their DNA, people did not experienceanxiety or depression in the six months after receiving the results. They racked upan average of $350 more in health care costs, although the relatively small number of people in the study meant the difference wasn't statistically significant. And while 11 in 50 of the people who were sequenced found out they carried rare genetic mutations that put them at risk of a disease, that information had few health implications for the majority of the patients, who showed no signs of the diseases.

In a few cases, patients might still develop those diseases in future, but that was far from certain. And, reflecting the fluid and evolving understanding of DNA, one mutation that was reported back to a patient was reclassified and was no longer considered a risk factor by the end of the study.

"My bottom line: big questions about the medical utility of whole genome sequencing in healthy adults, real concerns about the health care cost increases from doing whole genome sequencing in healthy adults, continued uncertainty about how the primary care docs are going to be able to handle this, and little comfort about the lack of harms if whole genome sequencing rolls out throughout the population," Hank Greely, director of Stanford Law Schools Center for Law and the Biosciences, said in an e-mail.

Every new medical invention brings with it excitement around novel capabilities, whether it is a 3-D mammogram or a new kind of joint implant. That always comes balanced against the question of how it should best be used. But genome sequencing has traveled a particularly long red carpet of hype. Its medical uses are unusually diverse and it has been plummeting in price; the cost of sequencing and interpreting the genomes in the study was about $5,315, but today an interpreted genome costs about $1,000, according to Jason Vassy, a primary care physician and researcher at the VA Boston Healthcare System and Brigham and Women's Hospital who led the study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Add to that the fact this type of informationis being sold directly to people, whether it is Silicon Valleys 23andMe or a growing crop of startup companies that seek to offer consumers medical advice informed by their genome.

Today, in 2017, for a healthy individual, I dont recommend that any primary care physician order whole genome sequencing for that patient. But in a way this study kind of models what might be a more common scenario; the patients would bring this to us. The patient gets their whole genome sequenced; they ask us our opinion, Vassy said.

That doesn't mean people don't like learning about their biology. Renee DuChainey-Farkes, 63, runs a school in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. She eats a healthy diet and exercises, but was curious about her DNA and decided to sign up for the study. Her mother had heart disease and breast cancer, but she had also smoked. DuChainey-Farkes hoped she'd get into the group that got their DNA sequenced, but she was also nervous when she was picked.

"It was like, 'Uh-oh, what am I going to find out,'" DuChainey-Farkes said. "You can always say information is knowledge, but if its not the kind of information I want, keep it away."

She found out she hasan unusual blood type. She learned about her underlying risk for diabetes and obesity. She also found out that she has a rare gene mutation that causes a disease called variegate porphyria, which can cause blistering skin lesions and acute attacks that cause severe abdominal pain.

She has never had an acute attack, but had blistered skin as a child that was attributed to sunburn. She went to a specialist for a follow-up appointment to get baseline measurements done. That reassures her, because if she ever has an attack there will be information in her medical record about her risk for the disease.

Although Duchainey-Farkes enjoyed the testing and felt like she learned a lot about herself, it's less clear how useful the information is. She's a fair-skinned redhead and has always avoided the sun.

"Its kind of like this secret I have. I don't know what to do about it," said DuChainey-Farkes, who has been trying to get her young adult children interested in her findings. "I'm not going to get a really bad sunburn -- I'm definitely more conscious of that."

Misha Angrist, an associate professor at the Duke Social Science Research Institute who has had his genome sequenced twice said that the study shows just how much effort is needed to create the infrastructure to provide this kind of information to healthy patients. He said it also hints at how much more research it will take to really gain any conclusive evidence on whether genome sequencingis ultimately useful for healthy people.

"I imagine some people, especially people who are skeptical of this, will look at this paper and say, 'You know, this is a nothing-burger,'" Angrist said. "I guess I would probably say I think its more like anhors d'oeuvres of a meal with many courses."

Peter Ting, 60, signed up because he was curious whether the thyroid problems and diabetes that afflicted his family members lay in his future, too.

His results were less than a revelation. Ting found out he doesnt have a particular genetic predisposition for diabetes or thyroid disease, a fact that came as a relief. But the relief changes very little about his outlook: he still thinks he should continue his efforts to lose weight. Ting also found an explanation for a problem that wasnt really a problem. For his whole life, he has had trouble adjusting from bright to dark environments; hed be momentarily blinded, for example, when walking into a dark movie theater. When driving, hed close one eye as he approached a tunnel, then open it once he was inside, so that one half of his vision would be pre-adjusted to darkness.

Finding out the gene mutation doesn't change anything, other than learning his problem has a name: fundus albipunctatus.

Its good to know, you know, Ting said. Its not that important -- well, its important that I adapted already.

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Scientists discover DNA might not be that useful as part of your annual checkup - Washington Post

Deccan Chronicle

DNA used to make nano computers The Hindu The DNA machines can relay discrete bits of information through space or amplify a signal, said Yonggang Ke, an assistant professor from Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S. In the field of DNA-based computing, the DNA contains the information ... DNA-powered machines to make molecular computersDeccan Chronicle all 2 news articles »

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DNA used to make nano computers - The Hindu

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Innocence Project lawyer Vanessa Potkin hugs Alfred Swinton, a man once suspected of being a serial killer, after a Superior Court judge Thursday in Hartford, Connecticut, approved a new trial in the 1991 murder of Carla Terry after DNA testing proved that he could not have made a bite mark that was a key piece of evidence. A pending Pennsylvania bill to expand DNA testing should exclude mandatory use of the procedure when defendants claim it would exonerate them. (Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant via Associated Press)

DNA testing is among the most powerful tools available to law enforcement, so it makes sense that many state legislators want to expand its use.

A pending bill to that effect is overly broad, however, and should be scaled back a bit to focus it on the most likely suspects. Doing so also would solve the other major problem with the legislation paying for it.

Sponsors deserve credit for limiting the bill to mandatory DNA testing only of those convicted of crimes. Some advocates originally wanted to test anyone merely charged with certain classes of crimes, which runs counter to the constitutionally mandated presumption of innocence.

DNA testing occurs now for people convicted of violent crimes and other major felonies. The results are cross-checked against DNA databases for unsolved crimes.

The bill would expand the process to anyone convicted of a first-degree misdemeanor or 15 specific misdemeanors. Misdemeanors often are serious crimes; Pennsylvania classifies as high-level misdemeanors some crimes that other states classify as felonies.

But as written, the bill would mandate testing for up to 40,000 people a year, at a cost of about $3 million for which the bill makes no account.

Lawmakers should scale back the mandatory testing to cover the most serious crimes, thus focusing on the most likely sources of breaks in other cases while controlling costs.

To make the use of DNA testing truly as effective as possible, lawmakers should mandate its use when defendants claim it would exonerate them. In those cases, after all, the risk is assumed by the defendant.

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Limit DNA tests - Scranton Times-Tribune

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It was a different time.

Sixteen and pregnant is scary at any age, but in Pittsburgh, in 1966, it left a young lady with few choices.

Cathy Nelson found herself in a Catholic home for unwed mothers when she was that girl.

Cathy didnt know it, but her mother had breast cancer and that may have had a lot to do with Cathys mother insisting that she couldnt keep the baby.

She, like I did, wanted her to have the best life she could and that wouldn't have been with me, admits Cathy.

That baby grew up happy and healthy in an adoptive family.

When I was 17, my dad, every night before I went to bed, he told me he loved me, says Karen Thurbon. And I knew they did but there are just some things that they can't answer.

Thats the power of human DNA.

And it was DNA that eventually led Karen to find her birth mother. Both Karen and Cathy were looking for each other for years.

Everybody has a right to know where they came from, Karen says, emphatically.

But they ran into legal roadblocks: I called an attorney in the town where I grew up I tried to have that done and he told me that was none of my business, says Karen.

They also had other hurdles to overcome, including the fact that Karens birth certificate had the wrong date on it.

Cathy was searching on the 24th, I was searching on the 23rd. If anything came up on any other day, I just scrolled past it, never gave it any thought, says Karen and, just for the record, she was born on Christmas Eve.

But both kept up the search for years.

I knew it was going to be hard and I didn't know what steps I had to take, says Karen, but I just knew I never wanted to give up.

Cathy would talk to friends about Karen, all the time, and they would ask things like, Don't you ever wonder about her?' And I said, 'I wonder about her, every day, I mean, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about her.' And I said, 'If I could just see her and know she's okay - she doesn't have to know who I am - but if I could just see her and know that she's okay and that she's happy, that's all I want.

They only had tangential luck until Karens husband uploaded her DNA information to a website that allows that MyHeritage.com. It was then, that it all came together.

In this edition of the Buckley Report, see their parallel lives come together after a 50-year wait.

I don' think anyone should go 50 years without their child, it just shouldn't happen, says Cathy.

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Thanks to the power of human DNA, parallel lives come together after a 50 year wait - myfox8.com

If youve heard about octopuses cleverly escaping their tanks, stealing cameras, and opening jars from the inside then youve also probably had nightmares about a cephalopod takeover. And as if the tentacled creatures werent unnerving enough, now it appears they can manipulate their own genetic information.

A study published inCell this past April showed octopuses and their cephalopod cousins have the unique ability to alter their RNA, a key element of DNA, to better adapt to their environments. To briefly catch you up on Biology 101, DNA is the nucleic acid carrying all the information needed to build every aspect of your body. Though also a type of nucleic acid, RNA is more of a paperboy, carrying all the information in the DNA to the rest of the cytoplasm, allowing the genetic instructions to become reality.

However, according to Popular Science, certain bases (which bind and form certain proteins) can be swapped out with different bases to create different proteins. Eli Eisenberg, a co-author of the study and biophysicist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, told the outlet, About 25 years ago, people identified the first example of RNA editing in mammals. There were a few cases where you'd see the DNA saying one thing and then see the actual protein was different.

Even humans have been known to use this adaptive hack, albeit rarely. This likely has to do with the fact that there are only about 1,000 locations within human DNA that allow for RNA editing to take place and fewer than 50 spots where that editing would have any noticeable effect on human physiology. Squids, on the other hand, have roughly 11,000 genetic opportunities for RNA editing, despite having the same total number of genes as humans, Popular Science reports.

Using previous research as a platform, the authors of this most recent study took a deep dive into the editing capabilities of cephalopods and found the sea creatures use this advantage to adjust to temperature shifts and expand their brainpower. And unlike DNA adaptations, which become fixed over generations, RNA changes can alter an individuals behavior several times within one lifetime. Put simply, dont be surprised if an octopus outwits you its in their genes.

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These Animals Figured Out How To Change Their Own DNA - GOOD Magazine

Hundreds of Broward cases are in doubt over prosecutors' favorite scientific evidence: DNA.

Illustration by Chris Whetzel

Late last year, as he served a life sentence in prison, Ernesto Behrens received a notice informing him of problems discovered at the crime lab that had examined DNA in his case. Behrens, who was convicted of armed sexual battery in Broward County in 2000, immediately filed a flurry of motions asking for the evidence to be reviewed.

But Judge Andrew Siegel quickly denied the motion without even granting a hearing.

Months after hundreds of cases were thrown into question over improper DNA interpretation at the Broward Sheriff's Office Crime Laboratory, Behrens' case has become a point of contention between prosecutors and public defenders.

Prosecutors say that his case wasn't affected by the DNA problem and that the notice might have been sent in error. The public defender's office, however, argues the judge's ruling shows that defendants aren't getting a fair shake at challenging the potentially tainted DNA evidence and that a much more thorough review is needed.

"The State Attorney's Office should also be looking at justice, and if there's one person sitting in jail or one person that was wrongly convicted based on faulty DNA, they should also be looking to right that conviction," Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes says.

The lab issue,which New Times detailed in a feature storylast month, surfaced in 2015. Forensic consultant Tiffany Roy reviewed evidence from a knife handle and realized it was ruled conclusive when it should have been inconclusive. Roy complained to the agency that accredits the lab, the American Society of Crime Lab Directors (ASCLD), which investigated and agreed with her.

At issuewas DNA evidence based on complex samples, in which the genetic material comes from multiple people. Complex samples require a complicated analysis to determine which portion of DNA belongs to which person.When the DNA is minuscule or degraded, pieces can be missing or seem to exist where they do not.

Because so much of that evidence is up to interpretation, the science can become more subjective and different experts often arrive at varying conclusions. That subjectivity led ASCLD in 2010 to issue new thresholds for interpreting DNA and calculating the odds that a particular person left DNA at a crime scene. Crime labs across the nation are grappling with the changes: Some are retesting thousands of cases to make sure old evidence was sound.

At the Broward crime lab, complex DNA processing was stopped after ASCLD issued its findings last year. The State Attorney's Office then began sending notices about the issue to 2,000 defendants in cases that were resolved since 1999 where any type of DNA was involved.

"We don't have the resources to go through every case," Chief Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus says. "And Ithink the public defender's office would not accept our opinion if we said, 'No, everything's fine; don't worry about it.' So our obligation is to tell them what the problem was."

After the State Attorney's Office notified defendants about the issue, the public defender's office followed up with fill-in-the-blank motions that can be used to challenge convictions. About 20 defendants have begun that process.But defendants are not entitled to representation for postconviction relief, so unless they can afford an attorney, they have to go through it alone.

Weekes argues that's an unfair burden when both the legal system and the science behind DNA are so complicated. He's highly critical of the way the State Attorney's Office has handled the crime lab problems, saying it does little to ensure the evidence was correct in cases that might have been affected. Even if a defendant files his own motion to double-check the evidence, a judge can still summarily deny it.

"They know that there are needles, and they put ten stacks of haystacks on top of those needles and said, 'It's up to you guys that potentially are entitled to relief to figure out where your needle lies,'" Weekes says of prosecutors.

Marcus defends the actions taken by the State Attorney's Office, pointing out that defendants can appeal judges' decisions which is what Behrens ended up doing. But in that case, Marcus says, the DNA was not complex and predates crime lab issues. Behrens, who was also convicted of armed battery in 1992, has filed numerous appeals over his years behind bars, none of which have been granted.

Weekes says the public defender's office plans to call for a committee of DNA experts and attorneys to look into the closed cases, as was done in other jurisdictions that faced similar issues. On that point, his office and the State Attorney's Office appear to agree: Marcus says prosecutors would be in favor of increased funding for some type of organization to conduct a review.

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Broward Judges Aren't Letting Defendants Challenge Bad DNA Evidence, Critics Say - Miami New Times

A host of proteins and other molecules sit on the strands of our DNA, controlling which genes are read out and used by cells and which remain silent. This aggregation of genetic material and controlling molecules, called chromatin, makes up the chromosomes in our cell nuclei; its control over which genes are expressed or not is what determines the difference between a skin cell and a neuron, and often between a healthy cell and a cancerous one.

Parts of the genome are only loosely coiled in the nucleus, allowing cells to access the genes inside, but large sections are compacted very densely, preventing the genes form being read until their region of the genome is unfolded again. These compacted regions, known as heterochromatin, are formed by a protein known as HP1 and similar proteins, but exactly how HP1 segregates this off-limits DNA from the rest of the nucleus has been largely a mystery, until now.

In a new study by UC San Francisco researchers published in the journal Nature on June 22, 2017, what looked at first like a failed experiment instead revealed the intriguing possibility that HP1 binds to stretches of DNA and pulls it into droplets that shield the genetic material inside from the molecular machinery of the nucleus that reads and translates the genome.

This provides a very simple explanation for how cells prevent access to genes, said Geeta Narlikar, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and biophysics and senior author of the study.

Narlikars graduate student Adam Larson was trying to purify HP1, and noticed that the liquid in his samples was growing cloudy. For protein scientists, this is typically bad news, said Narlikar: it suggests that proteins that should dissolve in water are instead clumping together into a useless mass.

But Larson thought the clumps might actually be useful. After all, previous work had shown that the role of HP1 is to sequester long strands of DNA into very small volumes. What if this was exactly the sort of clumping he was seeing in the tube?

Larson took his samples to the lab across the hall from Narlikars, where Roger Cooke, PhD, professor emeritus of biochemistry and biophysics, helped him examine under the microscope what could have been just a tangled molecular mess. Instead, Larson and Cooke saw clouds of delicate droplets floating around in the water, like a freshly shaken mix of oil and vinegar.

HP1 had a reputation as a difficult protein to work with get any solution too concentrated, and the protein would clump out. But if the protein was supposed to clump, said Narlikar, a lot of things we couldnt explain started to make sense.

Narlikar speculates that other scientists may have seen the same cloudiness before, but thinking it was simply a ruined sample, never pursued it like Larson did. It demonstrates the power of curiosity-driven research, she said.

To see how and why the HP1 formed droplets, the team produced different mutant versions of the protein, watching which separated out. By watching which parts of the protein were important for forming droplets, and using X-rays to monitor changes in the proteins shape, the team found that the protein nearly doubles in length when small phosphate residues are added in cetain locations. The molecule literally opens up, said Narlikar. I was surprised at the size of the change.

This opening-up exposes electrically charged regions of the protein, which stick together, turning dissolved pairs of proteins into long chains that clump together into droplets. Just as balsamic vinegars dark and flavorful molecules dont seep into the oil of a salad dressing without some extra effort by the chef, the molecules for reading DNA dont seep into the HP1 droplets.

The fact that such a drastic change in shape comes from such a small modification may allow the cell to tightly regulate where and when HP1 silences genes, said Narlikar. The changes come quickly and robustly too using a technology employed by Sy Redding, PhD a Sandler Fellow, the team created a curtain of DNA molecules pulled straight by fluid flowing around them, then added HP1 and watched the protein compress the DNA into tiny droplets, folding it up against the flow.

People have been seeing for over a hundred years that you get these dense regions of DNA in the nucleus, said Madeline Keenen, the Ph.D. student who ran the curtain experiment. Now were seeing the actual mechanism.

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From Strands to Droplets: New Insights into DNA Control - Bioscience Technology

Washington, Jun 26 Scientists have built simple machines out of DNA, which switch reversibly between two different shapes and could be used to make nanotech sensors, amplifiers and even a molecular computer.

The DNA machines can relay discrete bits of information through space or amplify a signal, said Yonggang Ke, an assistant professor from Georgia Institute of Technology in the US.

"In the field of DNA-based computing, the DNA contains the information, but the molecules are floating around in solution," Ke said.

"What's new here is that we are linking the parts together in a physical machine," he said.

Similarly, several laboratories have already made nanotech machines such as tweezers and walkers out of DNA.

Ke said that the work sheds light on how to build structures with more complex, dynamic behaviours.

The arrays' structures look like retractable security gates. Extending or contracting one unit pushes nearby units to change shape as well, working like a domino cascade whose tiles are connected.

The arrays' units get their stability from the energy gained when DNA double helices stack up.

To be stable, the units' four segments can align as pairs side by side in two different orientations.

By leaving out one strand of the DNA at the edge of an array, the engineers create an external trigger. When that strand is added, it squeezes the edge unit into changing shape.

To visualise the DNA arrays, the engineers used atomic force microscopy. They built rectangular 11x4 and 11x7 arrays, added trigger strands and could observe the cascade propagate from the corner unit to the rest of the array.

The arrays' cascades can be stopped or resumed at selected locations by designing break points into the arrays. The units' shape conversions are modulated by temperature or chemical denaturants.

For reference, the rectangular arrays are around 50 nanometres wide and a few hundred nanometres long - slightly smaller than a HIV or influenza virion.

To build the DNA array structures, the engineers used both origami (folding one long "scaffold" strand with hundreds of "staple" strands) and modular brick approaches.

Both types of arrays self-assemble through DNA strands finding their complimentary strands in solution. The origami approach led to more stable structures in conditions of elevated temperature or denaturant.

Researchers showed that they could build rectangles and tubes of array units. They also include a cuboid that has three basic conformations, more than the two-dimensional array units with two conformations.

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New DNA mini-machines may lead to molecular computers - Outlook India

More and more people are taking DNA tests to get an insight into their genetic ancestries. Like everyone else, when I took mine earlier this year I was excited over the prospects of confirming (or questioning) the information Id already gathered through family lore and my own research.

The result? Absolutely no surprises ho-hum! But I did realize something new and interesting. My DNA results are readily explainable in terms of historic ethnic movements.

Heres how my experience applies to you. If you study up on history of the past 1,500 years or so, you have a good shot at learning how the strands of your DNA ended up combined in yourself.

In my case, the bulk of the DNA (57 percent) is listed as Irish. Thats what I expected. Both lines of my family arrived in America from Ireland in the mid-1800s.

But how did I end up with 18 percent Great Britain? Heres where family lore is the key. Id been told decades ago that my mothers paternal line started not in Ireland but in Britain, with the earliest record being my mega-great-grandparents living there in the 14th century.

It was about 200 years later that a direct ancestor left Britain for Scotland, with one of his descendants about 250 years afterward moving to Ireland and marrying there, a pair of moves that increased the Celtic (Irish and Scottish) content of my total DNA way beyond the British content.

Now, how to explain the 12 percent Western Europe? When I look at ancestry.coms map with ancestral lands circled, I see that Western Europe seems to be largely the coast of France. Didnt the Norman French invade England in 1066, settling down and, in time, marrying into the local populace?

Theres another circle up in the Baltic Sea area. If you remember your history courses, youll recall that groups from that area chiefly Anglos, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings invaded ancient Britain in early Christian times and, guess what, merged over the years with the local population of native Britons and Celts (ancestors of the Irish).

Some small oddities remain, but in tiny percentages. I see circles for central Europe and the Iberian peninsula. Does that mean that Ive got some Austrian and Spanish?

No, I dont think so. History shows that the Celts who eventually dominated in Ireland, Scotland and Wales arose in central Europe, with some moving down to what later became Spain and Portugal. The most likely explanation is that descendants of the ancient Celts share a good deal of the original Celtic DNA even today, no matter where their ancestors have been living for the last 1,500 years or so.

The test offers more precise results than Id thought it would. It even shows that my Irish/Celtic DNA is divided between the northeast of Ireland (from which my maternal line emigrated) and the northwest (from which my paternal line emigrated).

So, when my parents married in 1941, my father brought a largely Irish/Celtic DNA that had begun in central Europe, while my mother brought a polyglot mix of British, Baltic, French and Irish/Celtic. That blend would account for the predominance of Irish/Celtic in my own DNA, with substantial but lesser amounts of the rest.

Want the same experience? Head on down to the Northeast Pennsylvania Genealogical Society. At 6 p.m. on July 12 theyll have people there to help you take the ancestry.com DNA test. Regular price is $99. Theyre at the Hanover Green Cemetery building, Main Road, Hanover Township.

Tom Mooney Out on a Limb

http://timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_TOM_MOONEY-3.jpgTom Mooney Out on a Limb

Tom Mooney is a Times Leader genealogy columnist. Reach him at [emailprotected]

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Out on a limb: DNA test can help trace family history, cultural ... - Wilkes Barre Times-Leader