www.23andme.com/en-gb/
Just saw an advert for this on TV - send off a bit of spit and get back all you wanted to know, and possibly more, about your health. At £125 it's not pocket money, but it's heading that way, and I'm sure they'll have quite a few takers at the current price.
Anyone here going to give it a go? I'm certainly curious, but not cheap enough for me yet.
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I will when I get a modest windfall or the prices gets to about £50, as I imagine it will as more people opt for the service.
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No, ill take my chances, I could be knocked down by a car tomorrow and I would wager that is more likely than this test telling me something useful.
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The thought of 'being knocked down by a car tomorrow', raises some interesting questions. Supposing a post mortem DNA test (or even the investigation itself), indicated some hitherto unknown condition that would restrict the longetivity of an apparently healthy individual, could it be used to justify reduced insurance payout?
(Alt the converse could be true - a long life gene could justify an increased payout?)
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I really don't think that 150 quids worth of testing my gob is going to provide me with all my future ailments and cause of death.
Its a load of pillbox
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Read somewhere you may as well give your money to a fortune teller.
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I'd much rather not know when I'm likely to die and what of.
I'm much more interested in my own ethnicity: what proportions of English, Celtic, Berber and Arabic there are in my makeup. But not interested enough to send a swab, yuck.
There were some interesting ethnic maps of the British Isles in some link the other day. What a pity the maps didn't extend to the Mediterranean.
My old man, who was English - Bristol and rural Gloucestershire with an alleged dash of Spanish in the remote past - used to say that my mother looked 'Phoenician'. She certainly didn't look or sound vulgarly Maltese like her older sister and brother.
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In near future such tests will be offered free as someone else might be interested in your DNA profile.
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I already know I'm a mutant... Don't need anyone else telling me!
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I have lived for 75 years, I am going to die some time soon and I don't care much of what or when.
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Talking of the Berber people I was in the Canaries for the past two weeks and became interested in the original inhabitants of the islands. DNA testing has shown them to be of Berber origins and they seem to have arrived on the islands around two thousand years ago surviving as nomadic shepherds until the arrival of the Spaniards in the fifteenth century. They had no metals and no boats or ships.
The intriguing thing is how did they get to the islands?
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 23 Mar 15 at 22:50
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>> The intriguing thing is how did they get to the islands?
The romans exported them.
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Yes that theory has been proposed but no historical evidence and why would they have bothered carrying Neolithic people's to, for what were the Romans, islands on the edged of the known world and abandoning them? The only other possibility would be, I suppose, that they did once have shipbuilding knowledge and migrated to the islands and then lost their boatbuilding knowledge.
Very intriguing. There is a good museum in Santa Cruz La Palma with details of the way they lived. There are still places on the island where you can see thier strange carvings in the rocks.
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>> the known world and abandoning them? The only other possibility would be, I suppose, that
>> they did once have shipbuilding knowledge and migrated to the islands and then lost their
>> boatbuilding knowledge.
There is absolutely no reason why they wouldn't have had boat building knowledge, living on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, bumping into those from the northern side who had it, and butting up against the Egyptians who certainly had it. The North Easterly trade winds make getting there fairly easy, and getting back much harder!
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Let us assume that they arrived on the island by chance...
If they had limited numbers - with equally limited boat buiding experience, the chances are that any further explorative journeys from the island would be likely to include the knowledgeable boat builders. Since navigation accuracy was very limited, the chance of a return of the skilled people to the island was remote.
Skill, knowledge and boat building experience tends to zero (not to be confused with Zero) very quickly! QED
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I'm sure Dirk Pitt has found some perfectly rational explanation.
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>>The intriguing thing is how did they get to the islands?
The westerly winds would have taken them there. It's inconceivable to think they didn't have some sort of boat two thousand years ago.
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>> The westerly winds would have taken them there. It's inconceivable to think they didn't have
>> some sort of boat two thousand years ago.
I'm not sure its inconceivable. these were a stone age (neolithic) people with no metal tools and whilst it's not impossible to build some sort of seagoing canoe without such tools the real question is what happened to those skill once they arrived at the islands.
They certainly had no boats when the Spanish arrived 1500 years after the Guanches settled on the islands and surely boats would have been extremely useful to an island dwelling population. It's not that there is a shortage of material, the islands were covered in trees, a fact that the Spanish exploited themselves for shipbuilding.
All of the islands were settled which indicates a mobility between the islands at some time and they are comparatively close together so it seems odd that such a useful technology as building a simple boat would be abandoned.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 24 Mar 15 at 08:53
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Perhaps they built boats out of reeds, but then had no further source of materials once on the islands?
Like the Ra and Tigris expeditions.
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>>covered in trees, a fact that the Spanish exploited themselves for shipbuilding.
Them damn Spaniards built a lot of boats, barely a tree left
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La Palma and La Gomera have loads of tree. Take a walk through the Garjonay National Park on La Gomera and you will be amazed at the size and density of the forest.
The western islands are much nicer in my opinion that the main tourist islands but i'm not fan of mass tourism and tourist resorts preferring the quieter places.
La Palma is probably my favourite island. It's stunningly beautiful and very varied both in climate and vegetation and has some interesting and unspoiled towns.
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>> All of the islands were settled which indicates a mobility between the islands at some
>> time and they are comparatively close together so it seems odd that such a useful
>> technology as building a simple boat would be abandoned.
Well they didn't walk between africa and the islands, they didn't fly, 60 odd miles is too far to swim, so they had to have got there by boat, If they didn't know how to build boats, someone did it for them
Romans, Phonecians, Pharoes, fit the timescale.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 24 Mar 15 at 09:32
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Well they didn't walk between africa and the islands, they didn't fly, 60 odd miles is too far to swim, so they had to have got there by boat, If they didn't know how to build boats, someone did it for them.
A fair summary. I tend to go with the lost technology idea but it is an intriguing mystery that looks likely to remain unresolved.
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Problem Solved, dunno what all the fuss is about.
Royal Air Maroc flight 960, Cassablanca - Las Palmas, a mere 2 hours.
Clearly I was in the wrong business, should have been an Anthropologist.
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>> Problem Solved, dunno what all the fuss is about.
>> Royal Air Maroc flight 960, Cassablanca - Las Palmas, a mere 2 hours.
I think I see a flaw in your theory of neolithic migration by scheduled airlines. El Hierro doesn't have an airport so they would have need a ferry from La Gomera. Or did they have helicopters?
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>> I think I see a flaw in your theory of neolithic migration by scheduled airlines.
>> El Hierro doesn't have an airport so they would have need a ferry from La
>> Gomera. Or did they have helicopters?
Ok, so it needs a little refinement around the edges.
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>>They certainly had no boats when the Spanish arrived 1500 years after the Guanches settled on the islands and surely boats would have been extremely useful to an island dwelling population
I 'take on board' what you state, CGN. Cliff's explanation has validity too of course.
The predominant winds affecting the Canaries are westerly I believe, which is why Columbus set off from La Gomera on his first voyage to the new world.
I'm no sailor, although I have cruised the Thames twice on 37' Blake's boats :)
I reckon if Fenderlander lent me one of his boats, I could sail to the Caribbean from Cornwall quite easily, using the westerly winds to get there, and the gulf steam to get back.
I know I can over-simplify things, but that's how I've gone about my life really - made decisions, stuck with them, and dealt with the minor details en route :o}
Lastly, getting to the Canaries 2000 years ago in a simple craft would be a lot easier than getting back to N. Africa again, due to those same winds, plus the dangerous currents around said islands.
Um, I may have got my winds mixed up, it would be the easterly winds to take you to America.
Last edited by: Dog on Tue 24 Mar 15 at 09:59
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>> Um, I may have got my winds mixed up, it would be the easterly winds
>> to take you to America.
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Wind direction is defined as where the wind is coming from, tides as where it is taking you to.
Lib dems are experiencing neither winds nor tides.
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>>>I reckon if Fenderlander lent me one of his boats, I could sail to the Caribbean from Cornwall quite easily, using the westerly winds to get there, and the gulf steam to get back.
Indeed an oar for the mast and shirt for a sail and you'd be away... as long as you had enough puff to keep blowing it up each week.
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DNA report - do you really want to know? - Ambo
