The Genographic Project
First of all I’ll say something that I shouldn’t say. YoYo Ma, a famous cellist (a person that plays the cello, I don’t know what you are thinking), is helping out in this project. Now with that meaningless thing out of the way, on with the main topic, The Genographic Project. By now, you should know what the project is about. (Today’s June 6, D-Day, more random facts. Blogging is too fun.) National Geographic with IBM attempt to collect and organize a DNA database of people all around the world to find our origin and migration routes in the past. By “our”, I mean everyone, you and me. This is the project that will answer where Adam and Eve were born, and from the current information they have, that place would be somewhere in Africa (Okay, no more religious stuff starting from now, I promise). Using the technology and knowledge about DNA we have today, this project traces special markers in the DNA of people as it passes from generation to generation. So technically, from this project you can find where your relatives were living 5000 years ago. You could help out with the project too. With modern technology, you can buy a kit to send a sample of your own DNA for 5 cents less than 100 dollars and it comes with a free DVD, self-addressed envelope and other freebies! I don’t know about you but this is like a scam to directly fund the project. Even though DNA analsys is costly, they should just be honest and ask for donations. Personally, I’m not sure if they can even trace migration patterns accurately in modern times. Many people travelled far away from their home country nowdays with the invention of airplanes. Tracking the origin would be like trying to pin down where a bunch of geese that can fly around the world were born. Soon people will migrate to space, on Mars or something. Good luck tracking that down. This blog is quite random, I need my sleep.
posted by Kenneth Leung @ 9:52 p.m.
2 comments
2 Comments:
I agree with you, with the whole scam ming for funds for the project. I don't think freebies would help much either.
I wonder why and how YoYo Ma got involved? At first, I thought you were using slang!
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