Denisovan DNA is online

The genome of the third official (but extinct) species of modern humans has been published online in a public database and can be freely accessed by everyone at http://aws.amazon.com/datasets/2357. Now I’m sure I’ll be able to know whether some of my most remote ancestors also belonged to that species. When the results are in, I’ll let you know.

The Neanderthal in me

I inherited 2.5% of my DNA from our ancient Neanderthal cousins. It’s an average value, I’m told in my results. Some people have more, others, have less Neanderthal in them. I also hope to know soon what percentage of my genome is Denisovan (the third species of modern humans, whose fossils were discovered in a cave in Siberia, and officially recognized a year ago). Like the Neanderthals, they’ve been extinct for some 30 thousand years, they coexisted with Homo sapiens (ourselves) and Neanderthals, and like the Neanderthals, they interbred with us.

My article in Sciences et Avenir...

...is here.









Photo: Guillaume Pazat

My Asian ancestry is gone

In one of my earliest posts, I mentioned 23andme’s Ancestry Painting, which allows us to see the origin of our chromosomes in terms of large geographical regions. At the time, I had some small fragments (less than 1 percent) of Asian origin. But recently 23andme announce it had made improvements to this functionality – and when I went there a few moments ago to see if anything had changed for me, I discovered that my Asian genes were no longer there...

On air: my genes and me on French radio

Listen to the podcast of the debate that took place today on France Culture's "Science Publique" program (in French).

Me and my genes on French radio!

Tomorrow I'm participating in a debate, on the French radio station France Culture, on the topic “Do genetic tests predict our future?”. The program’s name is Science Publique and it starts at 2 p.m. (Paris local time).

Tomorrow in Sciences et Avenir: my journey to my genes, revisited

My dear friend Dominique Leglu presents, in this video clip, the contents of the May issue of the magazine.