Class blog for sharing and commenting on current events in biology.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Study Reveals Genetic Path of Modern Britons

Grace Leemputte                                                                                                       03/21/15
Current Event                                                                                                             Biology

Wade, Nicholas. "Study Reveals Genetic Path of Modern Britons." The New York Times. The                               
     New York Times, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

The article “Study Reveals Genetic Path of Modern Britons.” discusses how there are only 17 genetic clusters in Britain. Scientists in Britain are now analyzing the DNA of people from Britain to see where they came from. There are some clusters from Orkney Islands, Wales, and 17 other regions. This happened when Romano-British people reproduced with Saxons. More people came to Britain from different areas in Europe which caused these genetic clusters to happen in certain areas. Dr. Donnelly who is one of the main scientists looking at this experiment said “ The study was groundbreaking because it is really the first time that scientists looked in great detail within a country at the pattern of genetic variation.” They studied 2,000 people and then organized them into genetic groups.

This article is an important connection to society because it is a brand new study. If we conduct an experiment like this in the United States we would be able to see all the places people are from and if we have clusters like they do in Britain. This may even be able to help us in medicine because sometimes people are more susceptible to diseases or illnesses depending on their genes. If we can find which groups of people are more susceptible to disease we could find a specialized cure for those people.

This article was very interesting but could sometimes be hard to understand. It seemed like it was skipping around a little bit. It would talk about one thing and then go to another and then come back to the first thing. Overall, I found this article to be very interesting and informative.

4 comments:

  1. I liked how you gave us a general outline of the study and some specific details to allow me to understand the experiment. Bring up the point about how it was hard to understand is another good point because Im a bit confused about this experiment myself. Firstly I was impressed that this kind of experiment was preformed and that this may help to find out where the general group of people are from. One suggestion is to talk a bit more about the experiment itself so we know more details.

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  3. I think Grace did a great job on explaining how exactly the genetic studies in Britain took place. I also think she did a good job of explaining why there are in fact 17 genetic clusters. Lastly I think the fact she gave a briefer description of the study was easier to read and also probably hard for her to do. I found it interesting how people coming from all over Europe to Britain is why the clusters of genetics happened. Also I found it interesting that it was the first time scientists looked in great detail at a countries genetic pattern. My one critique to Grace is that she could have probably added a little more to her summary which would have helped me understand more about the studies. Overall great job Grace!

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  4. I think Grace did a great job on explaining how exactly the genetic studies in Britain took place. I also think she did a good job of explaining why there are in fact 17 genetic clusters. Lastly I think the fact she gave a briefer description of the study was easier to read and also probably hard for her to do. I found it interesting how people coming from all over Europe to Britain is why the clusters of genetics happened. Also I found it interesting that it was the first time scientists looked in great detail at a countries genetic pattern. My one critique to Grace is that she could have probably added a little more to her summary which would have helped me understand more about the studies. Overall great job Grace!

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