<p>Source: [L&S</a> Freshmen Can Have Their DNA Analyzed - The Daily Californian](<a href=“http://www.dailycal.org/article/109474/l_s_freshmen_can_have_their_dna_analyzed]L&S”>http://www.dailycal.org/article/109474/l_s_freshmen_can_have_their_dna_analyzed)</p>
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<p>Lucking bastards. Where does the money for this come from though?</p>
<p>probably the same place they got the money ($321 million) to do the renovations for memorial stadium.
lol</p>
<p>“MTHFR”
Guess which swear word that reminds me of.</p>
<p>They get their genome analyzed while all I got was a lousy book. Those lucky MTHFRs.</p>
<p>I would rather have the Stephen Hawking book.</p>
<p>You can buy the Stephen Hawking book at any bookstore. How many chances do you get to have your genome analyzed?</p>
<p>All it tells you is your genetic disposition to high/low alcohol tolerance, lactose tolerance, and need to eat green vegetables. The test itself is interesting, but it doesn’t test for anything that I’m keen to know about.</p>
<p>Ha. My roommate definitely would have wanted to know his alcohol tolerance. :)</p>
<p>Weird, I was thinking way too 1984 for my tastes. How do you know it’s gonna be used just for those purposes? Or if your DNA doesn’t end up locked up in some police office or FBI file? Here’s the parents take on it, and I’m with them:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/930731-uc-berkeley-asks-incoming-students-dna.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/930731-uc-berkeley-asks-incoming-students-dna.html</a></p>
<p>I think its pretty awesome!!! It’s optional so for those who don’t think its safe or whatever then just don’t do it.</p>
<p>Why would you care if anyone has your DNA sequence? If you ask me, this is far less scary than anything from 1984 because it’s UC Berkeley not the government, and no one cares about your genome. Besides, with camera phones, the Internet, Google, and Facebook, big brother is already here and nobody cares.</p>
<p>…well, will it help me with my freshman 15?</p>
<p>It might. From my experience, most of the Freshman 15 comes from having so much access to soda. (I’m a vegetarian, so my view may be different from others’)</p>
<p>My freshman 15 came from booze. </p>
<p>I wish I had this to know I had a disposition to alcohol abuse/allergy back in 2002. Combined with my tendency towards impulsivity (thank you ADHD!) and the fact I act like a stinking drunk FAR before I ever feel it, it would have saved me and some acquaintances of mine a lot of grief. Seriously, from day 1, I could kill a six pack and not feel anything – but I would act like it to outside observers. But no one ever really commented on it, so I was kind of blindly oblivious to it for years. Silly me.</p>
<p>Though, I can just see the pick up lines from this… </p>
<p>“Hey there baby, I’m alcohol resistant and lactose intolerant, let’s go do a keg stand while making fun of the milk drinkers.”</p>
<p>They’re definitely not sequencing or re-sequencing. I don’t even think they’re doing genome-wide SNP’s seeing how the cheapest commercial option is around $500 ([SNP</a> genotyping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“SNP genotyping - Wikipedia”>SNP genotyping - Wikipedia)). Wikipedia’s page really sux here; I wish they had a table of how much each of these methods cost.</p>
<p>i hope they do something like this next year</p>
<p>Yeah my mom told me about this this morning…jokingly saying that they’re actually gonna run it through the FBI database and check for impostors</p>
<p>Berkeley is a public school, they are an arm of the state government. Still, I don’t think there’s anything to fear. </p>
<p>If anything, this is a net gain for the genome research on campus as I’m sure getting access to this many samples is expensive. They are probably saving money by doing this, not losing it.</p>
<p>When do we receive our package? Anybody know?</p>
<p>“If they have a common allele of aldehyde dehydrogenase, they will then know that they have a deficiency in metabolizing ethanol. This test is an easier and more pleasant way to learn this than by the empirical testing that is common in this age group.”</p>
<p>lol i found that funny for some reason. i guess the way they said “empirical testing” made me imagine a bunch of college kids getting drunk and frantically scribbling down observations on notebooks</p>