DNA mapping... offensive?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

I’m a nerd, a dork, a geek… very much so. I like biology.

I think it would be nifty to get DNA/Gene maps of myself, ShadiRoxan and any offspring that may occur. Mount them all in the same frame so you could look at them and go “Ah, I see he got that little dark line from his dad… and that smudge here from his mom.” However, ah… well, yeah. These things are advertized as, er, paternity tests, see… so, um… she gets kind of upset and offended about the suggestion.

Anyway, for IMHO… would you believe someone if they fed you that first paragraph, or would you think they were just trying to be sly about accusing you of infidelity?

And, for GQ… any recomendations on what types of tests or specific companies produce the most artistic and/or informative results?

#2

Well I think it would be cool, but I love biology/genetics too. Someoene could probably pull this off without suspicion if he or she had a history of being a science nut. It probably won’t go over very well if this whole idea just seemed to come out of nowhere.

#3

I don’t know that I would go so far as to hang it in my house, but as a fellow science geek, I can appreciate it. Call it a “very detailed family tree”. :slight_smile: As for the implied paternity accusation, I wouldn’t even think of that. However, if you’ve had fidelity issues (real or imagined) in this relationship, then I think you are out of luck for it being well recieved.

I don’t know that any of the outfits that run paternity tests return actual pictures of the gels. I think you just get back a % chance of paternity. Your best bet for an “artistic” (i.e.- well-photographed) result is probably to contact researchers who do this kind of work. My understanding is that it is a pretty straightforward test, that doesn’t require anything not found in your standard molecular biology lab. If I were looking to do this, I would contact researchers in the nearest Human Genetics department. Well, if I were really doing this, I would just do it myself, after hours in the lab :wink: You’ll probably be asked to purchase the reagents, but I don’t think it should be that much more than a well-documented paternity test.

BTW, I’ve always wanted to have my karyotype done and framed. It has a better aesthetic than a DNA gel. Too bad that wouldn’t show parentage.

And, just FYI: Craig Venter has the ultimate version of this. His DNA was one of 6 that was sequenced for the human genome project. :cool: