The Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting story about Anne West, a 17-year old girl who is making a big splash in the world of science. Her friends call her a ‘bio nut’ because she likes biology so much. She hasn’t had time to study for her driver’s license test yet, but Anne is making time to study her family’s genome. She is analyzing their DNA using her home computer, looking for trends and kernels of important information within billions of data points.
DNA really is amazing. Paternity testing makes use of less than 1% of the data available from a full sequencing of a family’s genome. In fact, scientists often use the term ‘junk DNA’ to refer to the parts of the DNA used for identity and relationship testing. Paternity testing has become routine, fast, and so much a part of our culture that it is a staple of television dramas and talk shows. It’s great that budding scientists like Anne get excited about discovering the next frontier in biology.
Leave a Reply