Slashdot Mirror
Google Maps, Disease Risk, and Migration
First time accepted submitter ecorona writes "This Google Maps mashup was published in Science (paywall warning) this week. It shows genetic risk for multiple diseases distributed across the globe. It's easy to follow the migration path and see which diseases increase/decrease in risk along human migration paths. Click on the populations to see the relative risk of the selected disease for each population. You can pick your a disease and see which populations are more susceptible. The article is behind a paywall, but the website is free to use." On a similar note, an anonymous reader points out
a British research project that "used Twitter to track and map flu-like illnesses across the U.K. to determine if epidemics were emerging. The research culminated into an online visual tool, the Flu Detector, that maps tweeted flu rates in several regions across the U.K."
Obesity - Northern South America, but NOT the US?!
The emphasis of chart is on genetic ancestry and not location. Although the two coincide with each other from a historical perspective, location is meaningless for the USA. For example, most Americans can trace their ancestry to Europe while others South American. Over generations to this day, Americans are to put it bluntly, mutts. Based on that chart, my ancestry is mainly made up of Orcadian followed by North Italian and some Pima. Honestly, I wouldn't know how to calculate my risk if those numbers are based on purity alone. Once you mix the genetics, the results aren't evenly calculable within the ratios.
Life is not for the lazy.
It's not due to lower environmental exposure, its genetic. The gene ALDH2 is responsible for breaking down alcohol in the liver, and for 50% of Asians half the enzymes produced from this gene are ineffective in breaking down the alcohol. On the other hand, this makes them less susceptible to alcoholism, perhaps only due to the fact that they avoid drinking too much because of the effect it has on them.