Google wants your DNA
23andMe, a Google-funded online company selling a $999 ($NZ1314) DNA test, launched as a kind of genetics-based MySpace or Facebook that also has the more serious aim of allowing medicine someday to target its users' ills more precisely.
Users sign up for the DNA saliva test online and receive and return it by mail. Four to six weeks later, the results are online, allowing them to learn about their inherited traits, their ancestry and - likely with the help of a professional to look at the data - some of their personal disease risks.
The website, which takes its name from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each person's genome, says it will display more than a half-million data points in users' genomes in a form they can visualise and understand.
