The first dating service to use lab-based genetic profiling launched online last week. Scientific Match promises to pair up people who will be physically attracted to each other because their DNA is different.
Well-matched couples will like each others' natural scents, have more fun in bed, and bear healthier children than those who are genetically similar, the company claims.
The service, available only in the Boston area, charges $1,995 for a year-long subscription.
"I strongly believe this will dominate the future of dating services," said founder Eric Holzle, a mechanical engineer.
Members swab their cheeks and send in saliva samples. A lab spends two weeks analyzing the immune system genes, and then the company matches individuals with genetic profiles that are unalike.
"We look at six specific genetic reference points on DNA, and none of those six can match to make a match," Holzle explained.
He was inspired by a well-known "sweaty T-shirt" study of a dozen years ago, in which biologists found that women liked the smell of dirty shirts worn by men who were immunologically dissimilar to themselves.
As with other online dating sites, Scientific Match's users can fill out written profiles and upload photographs. Genetic details are not displayed, except to indicate a match. The service runs criminal background checks to exclude anyone who has committed crimes involving violence or identity theft.
Scientific Match is open to straight and gay people. However, women taking the birth control pill are turned away because some studies show they are more attracted to men with similar immune system genes.
The success or failure of the service can't be measured, however, with only a handful of customers so far. Although Holzle doesn't guarantee finding one's true love, he insists that people paired by Scientific Match will at least smell appealing to each other.
The romantic role played by scent is well-documented in poetry and science. Perfumers even add synthetic versions of pheromones, suspected aphrodisiacs found naturally in the body, to fragrances that include Paris Hilton's eponymous perfume.
But the ability to bottle attraction or to predict it through genetic profiling remains unproven by science.
Scientific Match sounds more like pseudoscience to Dean Hamer, the molecular biologist and author credited with discovering "gay genes."
"That sounds like a complete and utter rip-off that preys on people's lack of knowledge of causation and correlation," he said, adding that people could wrongly write off a potentially great mate due to genetic discrimination. "Why don't they just smell their underarms?"
Nevertheless, entrepreneurs are sure to try to capitalize on advances in genomics and biotechnology to reshape the landscape of high-tech matchmaking. The field is wide open. For instance, nobody has tried to set up couples based upon genes that have been linked to promiscuity or libido strength.
And Googling a date's full genetic code could be on the distant horizon. The cost of sequencing someone's DNA has dropped to the low six figures.
The latest online services to incorporate genetic testing include startup 23andMe, Ancestry.com, and the Genographic Project, which sell swab-and-send testing kits for uncovering the deep roots of a family tree.
eSnips has launched a service called Social DNA, a series of quizzes created in-house to help its users connect with one another. Quizzes can have any mashup of content--although most is text--ranging from toilet etiquette to political views to current events. The service is starting out with text, pictures, and audio clips, and is expected to expand to video in the near future.
What makes Social DNA interesting is how it pairs you up with other eSnips users as you go, providing percentages of how well you match other users based on your responses to the quizzing. Those who are willing to take an entire quiz (which usually has 10 to 12 questions) will get a more precise pairing. eSnips also takes the liberty of clumping you into one of its "social genes" groups, which are quizzes put categorized by sub-genre.
Along with its Social DNA section, eSnips is integrating people's Social DNA results into their profiles, so they can compare and contrast quiz results with people they're already friends with, or when browsing any old profile. eSnips will actually break down your total "compatibility" with a person, along with the best match of a quiz you've both taken. Yael Elish, CEO and co-founder of eSnips thinks this is a far better system for finding common areas of interest with your social networking buddies compared to Facebook and MySpace, which takes any information you've entered and turns it into tags. Incidentally, the company is planning to widgetize Social DNA to let people take it off the site and onto blogs and other Web sites, which I think could lead to a standalone Facebook app if somebody takes the time to code it.
This is a nice value-adding service for eSnips users but nothing revolutionary. It's not a platform launch or an open API (application programming interface). Social quizzing services are all over the place including Tickle (formerly Emode.com), QuizFarm, and MTV-owned Quizilla, to name a few. Social DNA is, however, much easier on the eyes and more user-friendly than any of those. I also have to give eSnips a nod for their writing. Say what you will about the wonder of user-generated content, but having pros write the initial batch of these has made the quizzes both quirky and entertaining.
Related: fooWHO: social bookmarking with a pinch of eHarmony
Get your quiz on with eSnips' new Social DNA testing center. Based on your answers, it lets you know who you should befriend.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Ancestry.com's PR team sent me a few envelopes with cheek swabs in them the other day. These are part of the company's new service, DNA Ancestry, that uses genetic markers to locate you in the family tree of all humanity.
I had visions of my DNA fingerprint landing in a government vault to be used to finger me in crime I have yet to commit, so I did not rush to send off my epithelials. Instead, I got on the phone with Brett Folkman, VP of Ancestry's DNA product, to learn a bit more about the service.
Folkman assured me that the tests that Ancestry runs on its customers' samples only indicate "hereditary markers." They can't be used to identify individuals and they don't test for medical conditions. However, the lab does keep your samples in storage unless you explicitly ask them not to.
Depending on which tests you buy, you get is an indication of which paternal or maternal ancestral line you belong to, although not your exact relationship to any individual. You can find cousins you may not have known about, assuming of course that they've also taken the DNA test, or someone in their family has. If Ancestry finds a family genetic match for you and the person who's matched is open to being contacted, Ancestry proxies the e-mail, like a dating service, to allow the first communication to occur without revealing identity.
The DNA test can also be used to prove a negative: For example, it can tell if a son and father are not related.
In the future, the DNA tests will be incorporated into Ancestry.com's standard genealogical Web service. The system will "infer" genetic markers where relevant. For example, it will assume that each person in the male line of a family shares Y-DNA markers (which they will if the sons are biological children of the fathers), and will use that information to presumptively map family connections up and down a tree. If only signing up for social networks worked like this.
It's an expensive service: Individual tests cost $149 to $199, depending on the type or test ordered and gender of the test-taker. For the tests to be worthwhile, other people in your family tree also have to take them. However, since DNA Ancestry tests for heredity markers that stick with genetic lines for generations, just a few people in your tree with results could make the fee worthwhile--especially if the tests connect you with people you may not already know, or even know of.
Daddy?
Genetics pioneer Craig Venter took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit with organizer Tim O'Reilly. What's a biologist doing at a Web 2.0 conference? Talking about how information and biology are converging (and have been for a while).
(Credit:
J. Craig Venter Institute)
Interesting tidbits: Venter's own DNA was sequenced as part of his research. It cost, he estimates, about $70 million. Today it costs only $300,000 to sequence a person's DNA, and the $100,000 benchmark is in sight. It's an information processing problem, he said. In other words, Moore's Law and genetics are tightly tied. It won't be long before your genome--and your likelihood to get various diseases, live long, be athletic, etc.--will be available in a standard medical test.
The implications for medicine, and its evil twin the insurance industry, are vast. Despite the privacy issues, Venter is in favor of transparency in genomics, so that, for example, you'll be able to "Google a date's DNA," as O'Reilly remarked. Scary? Sure. But "a good idea," Venter said. "Especially if you plan to have children."
In other news, apparently we are "weeks to months away" from growing a living, but completely synthetic bacteria in the lab. If you find this terrifying and fascinating, I recommend the novel, The Deus Machine by Pierre Oullette (Amazon link).
Peer-to-peer company BitTorrent is set to announce on Tuesday morning the availability of a new enterprise content delivery product, BitTorrent DNA. Designed for companies that use streaming video, large downloads or games over the Web, the launch of BitTorrent DNA marks yet another conscious move by the San Francisco-based software brand to move beyond its roots as the creator of file-sharing protocol that became nearly synonymous with digital piracy over the past few years.
BitTorrent described the new BitTorrent DNA product in a statement as "the ideal solution for publishers seeking ways to overcome the obstacles associated with centralized content delivery, such as slow downloads, choppy video streams, and inefficient use of network infrastructure." The inaugural client for the new content delivery network (CDN) is online video start-up Brightcove, which powers a number of large companies' broadband media operations.
BitTorrent DNA will be used to "accelerate" the delivery of the video hosted on Brightcove's platform.
With the rise of online video and large-scale media downloads, content delivery has become a crowded niche in the market. BitTorrent DNA will square off with industry leaders like Akamai Technologies--the force behind CBS' video distribution network as well as a host of others. BitTorrent is hoping, however, that its massive following (150 million downloads of its client, according to the company) will help give it an edge.
In addition, the peer-to-peer format has become increasingly popular in the streaming video space, with recent entries like Joost and Babelgum touting P2P technology as the backbone for their professional-quality video content.
In February, BitTorrent announced that it was creating a digital download store that would use that robust user base as a way to legally transfer large movies, games and other files. The company has also forged alliances with major movie studios for legal film downloads.
Meanwhile, the exhaustive battle over online piracy wages on.
- Threadless is one of the most popular shirtmakers out there. It started out with user votes to pick out which shirts would go on sale, and have since moved on to independent designers. When shirts sell out, they're typically not for sale again unless the demand becomes great. They're also set to open a retail store in Chicago next month.
- Glarkware, a small Canadian shirt company, is based out of Toronto, Ontario, and has a fairly eccentric line of humor-related shirts. They've also got a line of T-shirts on the way for toddlers.
- Shirt.Woot. From the same bunch that does good ol' Woot.com and Wine.Woot.com, is Shirt.Woot.com--a one-shirt-per-day service that rolls out a new design every night at midnight Central time. Every shirt is always $10 with free shipping, along with the option to get it delivered in two days for another five bucks. While a good deal of the shirts are designed by professionals, the service also runs a weekly "derby" with user-generated designs. The most popular design goes on sale, and the designer gets a cut of the profits.
Dreaded Spam becomes T-shirts at SpamShirt.com.
- Bountee is a hybrid service that offers both professionally designed T-shirts and a build-it-yourself solution. Bountee features a variety of "Web 2.0" features like tagging, user ratings, and commenting. It's also got a really slick, easy-to-use design.
- Split The Atom is a U.K.-based T-shirt company that's pretty much exactly like Threadless, but with a smaller selection. It also takes user designs in return for a one-time cash prize.
- Design by Humans has a very small collection of shirts, but offers some pretty decent prize money for winning designers with a daily, weekly, and monthly design contest. Each designer also gets their own profile page for listing any background information and to showcase some of their other works.
- BustedTees and Defunker are two very different Net T-shirt services from the same company. Bustedtees is more about humor, while Defunker offers more designer solutions akin to Threadless. Both sites are really slick, but between the two, Defunker feels a bit snappier. There's also a pretty large price gap, with most Bustedtees topping out at around $16, and Defunker averaging in the high-$20s and mid-$30s.
- T-ShirtHell. There's a reason this site has a warning page and a hellish name. These shirts are the kind that will get you stares in public, and usually not for a good reason. Definitely not for the faint of heart, or workplace.
- The Cotton Factory doesn't actually make cotton, but they have a very solid selection of designer, and humor T-shirts. There's even a section of T-shirts less than 10 bucks. There's some real gems in this place, especially if you like "ninja" apparel. ... Read more
Internet commerce is becoming the new pastime for many in my generation. Generation Yers like to buy interesting T-shirts online, and there's no shortage of sites out there that are putting out an absurd amount of user-generated designs. Here's a list of more than 20 quality sites that put cotton, and inspiration, on your back.
Readymade:
These services sell shirts that are designed by users and professionals.- prev
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