Hungarian Sequencing Company Vets DNA For 'Gypsy Or Jew' Genes 467
ananyo writes "Hungary's Medical Research Council (ETT), which advises the government on health policy, has asked public prosecutors to investigate a genetic-diagnostic company that certified that a member of parliament did not have Roma or Jewish heritage. The MP in question is a member of the far-right Jobbik party, which won 17% of the votes in the general election of April 2010. He apparently requested the certificate from the firm Nagy Gén Diagnostic and Research. The company produced the document in September 2010, a few weeks before local elections. Nagy Gén scanned 18 positions in the MP's genome for variants that it says are characteristic of Roma and Jewish ethnic groups; its report concludes that Roma and Jewish ancestry can be ruled out." Adds ananyo: "The test is of-course nonsense, and notions of 'racial purity' have long been discredited." Just when you think the world is too modern for such things, modernity gets hijacked by flim-flam.
Re:Nonsense? (Score:4, Informative)
>>Adds anonyo: "The test is of-course nonsense, and notions of 'racial purity' have long been discredited."
These are two different claims. One is that the test is nonsense, the other is that racial purity has long been discredited.
That's why the two statements are joined with the word "and"...
Re:Vampire (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ananyo is bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
An X-Linked Haplotype of Neandertal Origin Is Present Among All Non-African Populations
Re:Nonsense? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hard to know what to think of this... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The test was not necessary (Score:4, Informative)
Here is one of many papers, "Neuronal degeneration and mitochondrial dysfunction" [jci.org], where mitochondrial DNA does seem to "affect a damn thing in your body outside the Mitochondria".
Would you like to retract your kneejerk claim now or later?
Re:Hard to know what to think of this... (Score:4, Informative)
Linus was born in Finland but did the vast majority of his Linux work in the US. His family even moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to the OSDL's Beaverton, Oregon location to do his work. As of 2006 he was only responsible for developing approximately 2% of the entire Linux OS. The kernel was developed using UNIX as the model to produce a version capable of using the different CPUs for things like the PC or phone CPUs and chip sets. He did great work but building a kernel does not make a OS, it provides the most important component but he is not 100% responsible for the Linux OS. His biggest contribution was increasing awareness of the Open Source model. He has did a lot of good work but Windows, Unix, and the Apple OS are the predominate OS systems in use today all over the world. People come to the US mainly because it offers the individual the opportunity to succeed using the resources available in the country. Most of the other countries in the world rely on stealing the technology developed in the US and re-branding it.