This is a subject of much debate. Some folks, like George Church who I wrote about in my book, say yes. The argument goes: if I find a few cases of treatable genetic disease then I will have saved lives and money. The problem is the signal-to-noise ratio in the genome is still terrible—if we sequence every baby we're…

Well, in my case, nothing, since my genome is here: http://evidence.personalgenomes.org/genomes?displa…

I would say mostly an incomplete picture. 23andMe genotypes a chip that harbors mostly *common* variants that, by definition, are unlikely to be super major contributors to disease. That said, they also offer other stuff like drug response and carrier status. New companies seem to spring up regularly, I would…

Great question. I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is, if they don't ask you then no. If they do ask and you lie, then you've committed insurance fraud. What's interesting is thus far insurance companies have not taken much of an interest AFAIK. My hope is that we will have universal health coverage (for realz!)…

This is a very personal question: we all value money and purchases in different ways. I was interested in my genome less because of genetic disease in my family (though it's certainly there) and more because I spent so many years in graduate school being told that my own DNA was none of my business. For me it's been…

I think it was in 1999 that the CEO of Sun Microsystems said, "Privacy is over! Get over it!" Well, look at us now...I think it's a real Gordian knot because we tend to regard our medical information as extremely private yet nothing could be more uniquely identifying than one's DNA. I think we need to have a series of…

Thanks for having me! At the risk of sounding smarmy, I should say I love io9 and frequently call my kids' attention to the Dr. Who content... Anyway, who owns genetic information? Excellent and impossible question. What we know since June is that in the US one cannot patent genomic (i.e., native, unaltered,…

The sequel to Medieval Land Fun Time World...finally!