Why does 23andWe want to know? It’s for their featured research project titled “Handedness”.

According to 23andMe, little is known about why people become left-handed or right-handed. They think they can help the science community figure out what genetic component is linked to handedness by polling the 23andMe community and comparing their answers against their genetic data.

Here are the questions I was asked for the Handedness survey:

Questions 1-3:

Questions 4-6:

Questions 7-9:

Questions 10-12:

It’s no surprise that my 23andWe results tell me I’m “Pure right-handed“:

And, now I raise my right fist in salute to right-hand power.

See this post over at The Spittoon for more on the interesting lefties vs righties battle.

23andMe just sent out an email announcing the launch of 23andWe. Awwwww another cute name.

The concept behind 23andWe is pretty simple: They provide me with easy, fun questions in survey form and I get to see how my answers compare to the rest of the 23andMe community. At the same time, 23andMe is correlating my answers to my genetic data (which they think will lead to a new way of doing genetic research).

Here is a question from one of the surveys:

Here is one of my answers compared to results from the rest of the 23andMe community:

All in all, the surveys are a breeze and I can see myself doing plenty more of them in the future. Plus, there’s the added bonus that I might be helping progress genetic research in some tiny way.

Update: I guess 23andWe was launched at D6 today. You can read about the demo over at the D6 blog or watch the video below:

I’ve been waiting for Mike Cariaso over at SNPedia to turn out a Mac version of their Promethease tool.

Well, last night Mike emailed me and told me they now have a Mac version. I immediately ran my raw genome data (a file downloaded from my 23andMe account) through the tool, which took about 2 hours.

The tool compares your raw genome data against SNPedia’s impressive collection of DNA information and creates a report that you can browse. Here’s a screen grab of my Promethease report:

SNPedia explains how to read the Promethease results here. This is the general format for the results:

As you can see above, the presentation of the report’s results is very basic. They plan on improving the report in future iterations. Stay tuned here and over at SNPedia’s blog.

You can subscribe to my ‘My Genome’ posts only by  RSS or email.

This roundup is mostly for new readers of this blog. It’s just a quick snapshot of every post I’ve published in the ‘My Genome’ category up until today.

#24 Genetic Testing on The John and Ken Show (May 5, 2008)
#23 Just Downloaded a File Containing my Raw Genome Data. Now What? (May 4, 2008)
#22 Visualization of My Genetic Similarity to People Around the World (Apr 30, 2008)
#21 How Heart Attack and Other Four Star-Rated Topics Relate to My DNA, Part 2 (Apr 24, 2008)
#20 Fun with Y Chromosomes: Exploring my Paternal Ancestry (Apr 16, 2008)
#19 Look Ma, I’m in Newsweek (Apr 14, 2008)
#18 Fun with mtDNA: Exploring my Maternal Ancestry (Apr 12, 2008)
#17 How Breast Cancer and Other Four Star-Rated Topics Relate to My DNA, Part 1 (Apr 11, 2008)
#16 Sharing My DNA Results (Apr 9, 2008)
#15 The Most Common Cancer (For Men) and Me (Apr 6, 2008)
#14 I Just Received an Exciting Email! (Apr 4, 2008)
#13 Bummer… I’m One of Those Customers (Apr 1, 2008)
#12 Still Waiting For My DNA Results (Mar 16, 2008)
#11 Demo 23andMe with the “Mendel Family” (Feb 23, 2008)
#10 We Joined The DNA Network plus Exciting Spit Challenge News (Feb 12, 2008)
#9 Spit Party Photos (Feb 10, 2008)
#8 Spit Challenge: Fill Tube With 2.5ml of Saliva in Under 146sec (Feb 7, 2008)
#7 FedEx Tracking Says DNA Kit Arrives Today (Feb 6, 2008)
#6 Saliva-Spitting 23andMe Party on Wednesday! (Feb 4, 2008)
#5 $1000 Raised! Just Ordered My 23andMe DNA Kit (Jan 22, 2008)
#4 Decoding My DNA Soon, $820 Raised So Far (Update: $1000 raised!) (Jan 11, 2008)
#3 Calling All 23andMe Saliva Spitting Bloggers! (Dec 16, 2007)
#2 Fundraising Updates for Andrew’s DNA Test (Dec 12, 2007)
#1 Help Me Decode My Genome by Christmas (Dec 6, 2007)

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The John & Ken Show on LA radio station KFI AM-640 covered genetic testing on their Saturday (5/3) broadcast.

Note: I tried to figure out a way to incorporate “100,000 watt blowtorch lighting the LA afternoon skies” into the above paragraph but gave up.

They invited Trish Brown, a VP at DNA Direct, and myself to talk during the segment. I guess someone over at The John and Ken Show found my blog while doing some random Googling.

During the interview, John & Ken were surprisingly quieter and less angry than I thought they were going to be. They asked me basic questions regarding the DNA test I chose, my test results and raising donations on my blog for the DNA test.

You can listen to the genetic testing segment on the podcast below. The genetic testing segment starts at 33:40min and goes to 59:40min (They talk to me at the 45:30min mark):

MP3: John and Ken Show – 5/3/2008 (Click link to listen or right-click, save as)

Read more posts from the ‘My Genome’ category here.

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I’ve downloaded plenty of mp3 files to my desktop over the years, but I’ve never downloaded a file containing my raw, uninterpreted genome data. Until today.

23andMe lets you download a zipped, text file containing 500,000+ lines of your genotype call data. It’s all the raw, uninterpreted data they pull from your saliva.

All. on. one. 5mb. zipped. file. And, about 14.2mb unzipped.

Why did I download the raw data file instead of keeping it protected behind the layers of encryption over on the 23andMe servers?

No particular reason. Just curious to see what a file containing 500,000+ lines of my genotype call data looks like.

Here’s what it looked like when I opened it in TextEdit (Note: This is just the first 7 of 500,000+ lines):

I’ll probably use the Promethease tool the guys over at SNPedia built as soon as they create a Mac version.

Does anyone know anything else I can do with my downloaded text file containing 500,000+ lines of my genotype call data?

I’m up for interesting suggestions.

Update: See Mike Cariaso’s (of SNPedia) comment below regarding uploading data and getting results from MyFamilyHealth.

Here is a cool visualization of my genetic similarity to groups of people from around the globe. The longer the bar the greater my genetic similarity to people from that region.

As you can see, I’m most similar to people from Northern Europe in the 23andMe visualization.

Here is how my genetic similarity to different global regions stacks up:

23andMe’s Gene Journal let’s you see how your DNA data “relates to ongoing research in health and physical traits”.

They provide their own 1-4 star rating beside each Gene Journal topic letting users know how much research backs each specific topic and how much the general scientific community has accepted the research.

For instance, Heart Attack has a rating.

Whereas other topics might have a , or ratings.

23andMe provides a more detailed rating explanation:

Before I look at my Gene Journal topics D-H, I should note that 23andMe makes it very clear that their service is “Intended for research and educational purposes. Not for diagnostic use”.

I’m pretty sure most of us who signed-up with 23andMe understood this fully before we shelled out $1000. But, we are curious consumers and enjoy the chance to learn a little more about ourselves no matter how young and immature the personal genomics space is.

Ok, let’s look at four star-rated topics D-H in my Gene Journal (Check out Part 1 for topics A-C).

Earwax Type

Is wet earwax sexier than dry earwax (I have wet earwax)? Is earwax sexy at all?

After reading a little bit about the benefits of earwax I’m starting to see it through a more sexy tint. Why? Because stopping dust and shampoo from entering my inner ear is sexy.

Also, earwax might contain natural antibiotics to keep bacterial pirates from pillaging! Awesome. Earwax is getting sexier by the minute.

Eye Color

My eye color has been referred to as “Hazel” throughout my life, which is a variation of brown. I guess my eyes can’t decide if they want to scatter or absorb light.

HIV/AIDS Infection

I really enjoy all the extra warnings and cautions attached to this one.

Pre-HIV this isn’t very relevant. I don’t see anyone changing their behavior based on which of the genotypes they have above. Post-HIV, I guess it might give you some sort of optimism to have Genotype DD rather than my II.

Heart Attack

Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle.

You find Part 1 with topics A-C here. And, you can find more of my ‘My Genome’ posts here.

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On my dad’s side of things it appears that I belong to the R1b1c haplogroup, which is the most common haplogroup in western Europe.

If you want to get more specific, it looks like I’m part of the R1b1c9a branch.

23andMe says,

“Today R1b1c9a is found mostly on the fringes of the North Sea in England, Germany and the Netherlands, where it reaches levels of one-third. That distribution suggests that some of the first men to bear the haplogroup in their Y-chromosomes were residents of Doggerland, a real-life Atlantis that was swallowed up by rising seas in the millennia following the Ice Age.”

Whoa. Doggerland? A real-life Atlantis? I got to look that up on Wikipedia.

I guess this doesn’t sound too crazy since the only thing I remember from when my dad did the National Geographic Genographic Project was that at one time my paternal ancestors were Dutch Vikings.

I really hope this Doggerland myth isn’t a myth since it sounds so cool. I’m going to try and not be too skeptical. :)

The map below shows where concentrations of R1b1c might have been located 500 years ago (Darker color equals more concentration).

Here is some of the R1bc1 story (I edited it down to the Introduction and R1bc19a part):

And, of course, famous people in my paternal haplogroup:

You can see my maternal ancestry post here. And, if you want me to share my 23andMe genetic profile with you than go here.

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Make sure you pick up a copy of Newsweek this week.

The one with this cover (April 21, 2008 Issue):

Claudia Kalb did a great write-up of all the new-fangled personal genome services that have been popping up lately, like deCODEme, Navigenics and 23andMe (that’s the one I did), and how they’re being marketed.

The article is titled “May We Scan Your Genome?”

You can find the article on p.44 in the magazine and you can also read the full article on the Newsweek site here. The blurb from my interview is at the end of the article.

Update: View actual scans of the magazine article here.

Thanks to Hsien over at Eye on DNA for setting this up. She emailed me while I was driving, I answered back and like 5 minutes later Claudia Kalb called.

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Don’t worry, I put this in the ‘Disgusting Self-Promotion’ category, too. :)