« ASHG 2008: A stance, more or less, on genetic ancestry testing | Main | Carbon conference: The other election »

ASHG 2008: Something I didn't know about November

It's family history month, explained Ed McCabe of UCLA, president elect of the American Society of Human Genetics. This was at a press conference announcing the society's statement on ancestry testing, but he wasn't advertising for direct-to-consumer testing companies. Rather he suggested that this Thanksgiving, we should take the time to ask our elders about where we came from. Learning about the cultural richness of family history, he said, is very different from knowing that your genes say your are 40% european, for example.
I think family history month is largely recognized as October, but it's a nice sentiment, and I for one wish I had more people around to ask.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.nature.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/6629

Post a comment

Comments will be reviewed by staff before being published. You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Excessively long entries may be cropped. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers or press releases.

We strongly encourage you to use your real, full name. Email addresses are required: this is just in case we need to discuss your comment with you privately. They won’t be published.


Please enter the numbers you see below - this helps us to cut down on spam. Note that attempting to post within 30 seconds of hitting ‘preview’ or ‘post’ can cause the system to think you are spamming the site. If you are having trouble with this system, you can instead e-mail a comment to 'inthefield at nature.com'.