Communities of Mutants Form as DNA Testing Grows

GeneRegulator writes "The NY Times is running a story on communities that are forming around kids with rare genetic mutations. New technology that can scan chromosomes for small errors is being applied first to children with autism and other 'unexplained developmental delays.' It turns out that many of them have small deletions or duplications of DNA. Meanwhile, hundreds of little groups are forming around the banner of their children's shared mutations. As new research shows that many of us have small deletions and duplications of DNA that separate us from our parents, and that many of these "copy number variants" contribute to skills and senses, the families described in the story may presage the formation of all sorts of 'communities of the genetically rare' in the general population, not just amongst the developmentally delayed."

Vive la difference - we all carry lethal alleles

[dstates]

Another name for these microdeletions is copy number variation [sanger.ac.uk], a normal form of variation in the human genome. There is also a fundamental concept in population genetics called genetic load [wikipedia.org] which are recessive lethal alleles present in any population as a result of new mutations and limited selection against rare recessive alleles. Just be glad we are not all the same because then a single bad virus like the 1918 influenza could wipe us all out. Besides life would be so boring.

Re:Handedness

[thewiz]

Actually, a random mutation would be more like myself and my wife. We both have "disabilities" that, as far as the doctors can tell, are from random mutations. My wife has achondroplasia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfism [wikipedia.org] and no one else in her family (ancestors included) had dwarfism. The congenital heart defect I was born with is normally caused by the mother having scarlet fever when pregnant and my mother never contracted the disease.

Re:Please help out

[nuzak]

Yeah, it's safe. It's basically like a web-based simcity, and overall looks like a cool fun game concept. But apparently they have some kind of "affiliate program" or whatever that pays you by the page hit, so everyone is spamming them all over the intertubes, pissing everyone off, and myminicity isn't doing a thing about it (hell they created the problem in the first place). Supposedly it's against their TOS, but hey rule #1 about spammers. So now I pretty much wait for them to go out of business, and welcome any suggestions on how to hurry that along.