Part 1
Genetic drift is a change in frequency of an existing gene in a population which occurs due to chance events or a sampling error in choosing alleles of the next generation from the current generation. It results in loss of some alleles, including important ones and may create new alleles to hundred per cent frequencies. Its effect is much observed in small populations (Balick, Cassa & Reich, 2015). The founder effect is observed when a new colony is formed by the few members of the original population who have characteristics such as reduced genetic variation. Population bottlenecks occur when the population size is reduced to at least one generation where a large percentage of the population is eliminated or prevented from breeding.
Toba Catastrophe theory is an example of a reduced gene pool. The event nearly cleared the human population seventy thousand years ago after the super-volcano in Indonesia erupted triggering a major environmental change. It is believed that the human population was reduced to nearly ten thousand, a society which had difficulties in surviving the drastic environmental change. The population left suffered adverse health effects due to high temperatures, smoky air and ash which had plunged earth into an ice cage. Lohmueller (2015) noted that the genetic effects were evident to the offspring who were born by the survivors. Breathing problems, curved heads, small eyes, hairy bodies, and skin lash were some of the genetic traits of survivors’ children.
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Part 2
The DNA companies in the USA include; Ancestry.com, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, 24 Genetics, among others that offer different DNA services. The difference of the companies is based on services offered such as admixture, deep ancestry, genealogy and DNA sequencing. The companies promise to candidates’ actual information free from errors such as diseases that one could be prone to and data protection against exposure to third parties. The companies’ disclaimers cushion the firms from liabilities such any damage, incidental or actual and loss or claim of any kind. The companies' liability is limited to the amount paid for one year preceding the event that give rise to the liability.
I would not consider commercial, personal genome sequencing since it may contradict ethical considerations of data obtained. It may traumatize the participant due to the publicity of sensitive information obtained in it (Watson, 2016). Despite the benefits of getting to know the genetic details of the family line and possible prevention of diseases, it may have a negative impact from on the participants who may be alienated from the society, when they get to know their family line problem.
References
Balick, D. J., Cassa, C. A., & Reich, D. (2015). Dominance of deleterious alleles controls the response to a population bottleneck. PLoS genetics , 11 (8), e1005436.
Lohmueller, K. E. (2015). The distribution of deleterious genetic variation in human populations. Current opinion in genetics & development , 29 , 139-146.
Watson, M. (2016). Illuminating the future of DNA sequencing. Genome Biology , 15 (2), 108.
