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Dna Testing Is Is How Testing Dna of Town Is Going Going Is of Town Going to Change Change to Going Curator Chic Chic Curator Steven Levy ON WHY THE BIG END OF TOWN IS GOING HOLLYWOOD Nigel Bowen HOW DNA TESTING IS GOING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING EDIT ED BY Tony Magnusson Kelly Oxford Talk TRADES SEX FOR FAVOURS Rebecca Newman BUNGA BUNGA! Simon Dumenco CURATOR CHIC ILLUSTRATION BY KEVIN WADA. Corporate rockers: Lady Gaga and her fellow superstars are being offered impressive-sounding day jobs at big companies. JUNE/JULY 2011 / .COM.AU / 151 inspired Moonwalker game became a cult CELEBRITY classic.) And in 1997, Apple instituted a program called AppleMasters, soliciting product feedback VP OF GAGA from a varied group of famous users, including By Steven Levy Lauren Bacall, Sinbad and Jennifer Jason Leigh. But even as will.i.am and Lady Gaga get their new parking spots, there are growing questions about whether the halo of celebrity is being CORPORATIONS ARE NO replaced by the imprimatur of those closer to us. LONGER JUST ENLISTING A central premise of social networking — and a pillar of a lot of monetisation plans — is the CELEBRITIES TO FLOG THEIR belief that we are more interested in the PRODUCTS. THEY’RE NOW preferences of our friends and family than the GIVING THEM FANCY JOB fetishes of the rich and famous. If your friend TITLES AND A SAY IN THE ‘likes’ a product on Facebook, it can show up as Genomic philanthropy: After discovering he had a 20-80 per cent chance of developing Parkinson’s, PRODUCTION PROCESS. an endorsement in your News Feed. On a visit Google’s Sergey Brin immediately began funding to Facebook, you might learn which set of car research into that disease. speakers your cousin Larry recommends. Will he first months of 2011 haven’t been the this supplant the celebrity model? odds are I’ll never develop Type 2 diabetes or greatest for Intel. The semi-conductor Not a chance. No company will ever brag multiple sclerosis. My IQ and episodic memory Tgiant began the year with the discovery about “bass by cousin Larry”. Nor will a chip- fall into the “typical” range. Although I’m of 99 that a new chip installed in thousands of ready- maker elevate a civilian, even one with savvy per cent European extraction, my mother’s to-ship computers had a serious flaw. Then and a big Twitter following, to a formal people belong to Haplogroup J, which arose in Nokia decided to scuttle its plan to implement innovation post. The bet behind the celebrity- the Middle East 45,000 – 50,000 years ago. On an Intel-based system called MeeGo in favour of executive trend is that, at worst, hiring an icon my dad’s side I’m Haplogroup R1b1b2a1a2f, a new line of phones built around Microsoft’s will garner publicity and make employees feel which most likely formed in Turkey about 20,000 Windows Phone 7. more excited about their companies. At best, the years ago during the last Ice Age. But don’t cry for Intel. On January 25, the brands might actually benefit from the creativity How do I know all this? Did I subject myself to company announced that it had retained the and self-promotional flair that made those weeks of medical testing and spend countless services of a new ‘director of creative celebrities famous in the first place. Salespeople hours researching my genealogy? Well, no. innovation’ — will.i.am. Deborah Conrad, Intel and marketers at the event where Intel I spat into a vial, mailed it off for testing, then VP and chief marketing officer, handed the Black introduced will.i.am went bananas when their logged on to a website a month later to have the Eyed Pea his employment badge at an internal new innovation officer held up a microprocessor mysteries of my genetic code laid bare. sales and marketing convention. “It’s imperative and told them how such chips infused his music In 2003, the three billion DNA letters in the that Intel and our innovations are kept in front and changed his life. human genome were sequenced. Five years later, of the global youth culture that embraces new If that extra love helps Intel’s bottom line, by which time the cost of testing had dropped to devices and new forms of communication and he’ll have earned his badge. a mass-marketable level, Anne Wojcicki, wife of entertainment,” she said in a press release. On Google co-founder Sergey Brin, pioneered ‘retail a company blog, one employee speculated that genomics’, launching a company called 23andMe Intel would benefit from will.i.am’s belief that, (named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a “When you are truly inspired/magic happens/ GENOMI C S normal human cell). In 2008, for US$399, incredible things happen/love happens.” 23andMe customers could have 600,000 of their So that’s why Intel screwed up the Cougar TESTING genetic markers identified, thus obtaining Point chipsets — not enough love! estimates of their predisposition to 90 traits and As tech companies look to rap artists for their TIMES conditions, ranging from baldness to blindness. wisdom and insight, this push for something By Nigel Bowen Soon enough, other ‘personal genomics’ deeper than the standard celebrity endorsement companies, including an Australian outfit, is becoming the rule. The lecture schedule at Lumigenix, sprung up offering similar tests. Google boasts a roster that Conan O’Brien would IF THE EXPERTS ARE RIGHT, Romain Bonjean, CEO of Lumigenix, says he’s envy. Katy Perry was a recent guest at WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE had only a few hundred customers — mainly Facebook. And Lady Gaga is now a creative YEARS WE’LL ALL KNOW OUR well-heeled professionals with a pre-existing director at Polaroid. interest in genetics — since he launched his Headphone engineers wrestling with GENETIC MAKE-UP. BUT ARE company in January but believes he’s getting in frequency response and acoustic dynamics are WE READY FOR THE TRUTH on the ground floor of something huge. apparently starting to draw on the technical and OF WHO WE REALLY ARE? “The genotyping and sequencing market was creative feedback of performers like Ludacris, Dr worth $500 million last year. It’s predicted to be Dre and, again, Lady Gaga. Headphone worth $15 billion in 2014,” he says. “It now costs manufacturer Monster even claims that f it’s not too much information, there are about $14,000 to sequence an individual’s entire basketball player LeBron James’ input influenced a few things I’d like to share. I’m at greater genome. Some say that within five years it will its line of Beats earphones. None of this is new. Ithan normal risk of developing several be $100. Once that happens, everyone will be I remember when Michael Jackson visited Atari bowel-related diseases, of going bald and of sequenced. Today’s testing is like the first Apple in the early ’80s, presumably to look for having one or both of my balls lopped off. On Mac — it’s cool but it’s about to get a lot cooler. opportunities to turn his creative vision into a the bright side, I have only an average chance Mass testing has the potential to obliterate videogame. (He later went to Sega, whose Jacko- of getting lung, prostate or colon cancer and the recessive genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.” 152 / .COM.AU/JUNE/JULY 2011 “Everyone in the genetics field has been told they are likely to develop is just the tip of surprised at how quickly the field has moved the double helix when it comes to the ethical SEX and how slowly the uptake has followed,” says issues that will be thrown up when DNA testing renowned geneticist Professor Bob Williamson. takes off. There are one million healthy carriers “But testing is literally getting cheaper by the of the recessive gene for cystic fibrosis in QUID PRO month and everyone is interested in things Australia. Should they be “strongly passed down through families; everyone wants discouraged” from having children with each FELLATIO By Kelly Oxford to avoid having a child with a serious disease.” other? If they choose to do so, do they still have So can we really start breeding out diseases? the right to expect the rest of the community to “We already have.” fund their child’s care if it has cystic fibrosis? What? Is it then only a matter of time until men and WANT TO TAKE THE SEX “In the ’70s, in Cyprus, everyone had to be women start comparing DNA data on first dates IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO tested to see if they were a carrier of a severe and ruling out those who are insufficiently NEW HEIGHTS? THEN IT’S hereditary anemia called Thalassemia. If they genetically blessed? TIME TO PUT SEXUAL were, they were strongly discouraged from The ancestry aspect of these tests comes FAVOURS ON THE TABLE marrying another carrier and, if they did, fraught with its own dilemmas. For example, AND START NEGOTIATING. they were pushed to have prenatal testing. what happens to a person’s sense of identity Thalassemia was eliminated within a generation.” when they discover their clan’s history is a As soon as a market in what was labelled fairytale? “Every ethnic group thinks it’s more n the beginning, every serious romantic ‘recreational genomics’ emerged, politicians and pure than it is,” observes Professor Williamson. entanglement is an electric, superconducting, regulators were all over it, outlawing employers “When you look into any family history, you Isteamy, fleshy hump festival. New sex partner and insurance companies from engaging in always find there’s some Portuguese seaman or = new sex, and new sex = lots of sex.
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