dna testing
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Another Black Man Wrongfully Convicted: New DNA Screening Process Puts Lydell Grant Close to Exoneration
There’s a reason I am, like many people, against the death penalty. Certainly, there are criminals who have done things heinous enough that they deserve to be put down, but the finality of it all makes the decision on whether or not someone should die something I just don’t trust the American justice system with. I…
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Trump Administration Will Start DNA Testing Migrant Families Seeking Asylum at Southern Border
The Department of Homeland Security is launching a DNA testing pilot on the southern border next week to identify and prosecute people posing as families. The program is intended to limit human smuggling, according to reports from CNN and BuzzFeed. As CNN first reported, the pilot program will take place in two border locations and…
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46 Chromosomes and a Mule: Falsely Romanticizing Our Complex Genetic Identities for Profit
Last Tuesday night, a friend sent me a video of a commercial framed as a short film titled “Inseparable.” It was set in America during chattel slavery and featured Abigail, an enslaved black woman, and her love interest, a white man who was seeking to entice her to run away with him to presumably engage…
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Slavery, But Make It a Bodice-Ripper: Ancestry.com to Pull Offensive, Ahistorical Ad
The DNA testing company Ancestry.com says it’s pulling an ad depicting a mixed-race couple during antebellum slavery after a furious—and well-deserved—backlash accusing the company of romanticizing and whitewashing the reality of interracial sexual relationships during that period. The ad, called “Inseparable” (Funny how hard it is to be separated when the circumstances are, uhmm, literal…
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10 Things I Learned From My 23andMe Results (That May or May Not Be True)
Since I got my AncestryDNA results back, I decided I was going to check out the other services and find out as much information about me, myself and I as possible. I finally got my results back from 23andMe, and they’re interesting, to say the least. Full disclosure: I paid for this test out of…
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Tracing Your Roots: Why Did My DNA-Test Results Change?
A few reasons that the percentages in your ethnic-ancestry breakdown may change over time. Dear Professor Gates: I did DNA testing through the site African DNA. Initially it showed I had 82 percent West African ancestry, 10 percent European and the rest “Middle Eastern.” However, I recently received updated results from Family Tree DNA (which…