Although Andy Rubin’s keynote at D: Dive into Mobile is scheduled for just before dinner, expect to hear a lot of talk about dessert. On the menu are Froyo, Gingerbread and perhaps even a hint of Honeycomb.

Google did release a couple of tasty treats already on Monday–announcing plans for the Samsung co-developed Nexus S as well as the release of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). But I hear the cookie jar isn’t quite empty yet.

In between sugary snacks, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg will pepper Rubin on the many issues facing Android and the wireless industry. Mobilized will have live coverage of the session at this spot beginning around 6:45 pm PT.

Liveblog

6:37 pm: The crowd is still settling into their seats here at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, the swanky home to the inaugural D: Dive Into Mobile.

6:40 pm: Lights dim. Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg take the stage. “My husband, Walt Mossberg, and I would like to welcome you to this intimate dinner,” Swisher quips.

6:42 pm: Ironically, the crowd was asked to silence their mobile devices, but Kara says they should just feel free to leave them on.

6:44 pm: It’s Rubin time (and he has brought a satchel of goodies with him).

Rubin is asked about the Nexus One and why it didn’t shake up the business model. “We bit off a little more than we can chew.” Rubin says that they were hoping for a model more like that in Europe, where people can pick a phone and then separately pick service, typically at retail stores like Carphone Warehouse. “We were trying to do that model in the U.S. and only do it online.”

6:46 pm: Kara: So have you given up on that business model?

Rubin: With Nexus S, which is the thing we announced today, we still have that notion of an unlocked phone. But we are not selling it ourselves, but through traditional channels, in this case Best Buy.

6:48 pm: Walt: How is Android doing?

Rubin: Android started as an eight-person start-up. “During that time at Google we obviously staffed up.” Now there are 172 different phone models using Android after the OS was launched two years ago with one, the T-Mobile G1.

Rubin credits the quality of the software and the open nature of it.

6:49 pm: Walt: I notice more and more they are taking on the personality of the carrier, not Google, not the handset maker. There are lots of what I would call craplets. Verizon, for example, swapped out Google for Bing. Is there a danger it is being taken over?

Rubin: That’s the nature of open. That’s actually a feature of Android.

He takes a swipe at Windows Mobile, saying that the alternative is a commoditized world where all the phones have to have a start menu in one place and all the icons have to be tiles.

6:54 pm: Kara: Do you consider yourself the Microsoft of phones in that regard?

Rubin: No. We’re probably more like the Linux of phones, and that’s a true statement.

Walt: You mean hard to get drivers for, only for geeks, no real consumer would buy it?

Rubin: No, I think we’ve already proven that wrong. Bad analogy.

6:55 pm: Discussion about all the crapware that comes on many phones.

Rubin: The consumers are voting and the consumers are voicing their opinions.

6:56 pm: Rubin has some relatively nice things to say about the iPhone.

“I think everybody is embracing the iPhone. They are pretty open.”

Rubin says that most developers actually are having a pretty easy time getting their apps approved by Apple.

6:57 pm: Kara: How do you consider Apple as a competitor?

Certainly they make great products, Rubin says–robust, solid, good user experiences. A lot of consistency across applications. More recently I see them getting involved in the other end of the spectrum–services like a bookstore, the app store.

6:59 pm: Walt: What about Apple’s massive data center? That’s another area of competition for you guys.

Rubin talks about the power of Google’s ad-based model, which allows the core advertising to fund all kinds of applications.

Walt: Do you think Apple has the DNA to do this?

Rubin: “My assumption is Apple is a company that learns from its mistakes.”

7:01 pm: Kara and Walt: Are you profitable? Is Android profitable? Does Android make any money?

Rubin: We’re making money on the advertising that’s generated through Android.

Walt: Are you profitable if it was broken out as a separate business?

Rubin: Yes. [Wow. I'm curious about the math, but maybe if you add all the searches on Android-based devices.]

There’s no way I would have ever been profitable as a start-up. I probably wouldn’t have made it as a separate company.

7:06 pm: Walt: How do you see the rest of the competition beyond Apple?

Rubin: I don’t think it’s ever going to be just two [Apple and Android]. There’s a lot of innovation and a lot of ideas out there.

Rubin says there is a fundamental advantage to Android and iPhone since they are new and designed from the ground up.

He notes even Windows Phone 7 has legacy code from the original Windows Mobile from way back when.

“You just have this package of stuff that was invented before the Internet,” Rubin says. “When the architects built that product, they didn’t have the Internet in mind.”

7:08 pm: Walt: Is there anything you do like about Windows Phone 7?

Rubin: It was a big bet. They struck upon that notion of the centerpiece of the main tiles. It’s a good 1.0 product. It does look different and it does look unique. It’s solid. I’m not the predictor of being successful.

He says if he were to give advice to Microsoft, he would suggest that it give more freedom to carriers and phone makers so the devices don’t look the same.

Kara: Have you gone to Finland to woo Nokia?

Rubin: I haven’t been to Finland.

Walt: Forget Finland, have you tried to convince Nokia?

Rubin just laughs (a-ha).

7:12 pm: Kara: The discussions with Nokia–talk about them in detail.

Rubin: The company has new leadership [referring to CEO Stephen Elop]. They are evaluating lots of alternatives. I’m open-minded and a big proponent of Android.

Rubin again declines to talk about any meetings he may have had.

7:14 pm: What about the challenge of iconic products like RIM?

Rubin: Talks about the challenge of legacy and points out Motorola had that problem when it became overly dependent on the Razr. Then, “they bet the company on Android,” he points out.

Rubin said RIM is doing the right things–acquiring assets like QNX and DataViz to build a more modern operating system.

7:16 pm: Walt points out that RIM will be here Tuesday–PlayBook tablet in hand.

7:16 pm: Back to the discussion about persuading companies to use Android.

Rubin: If it’s good–and we all believe that it’s good–everybody can use it.

“You don’t need to be a partner of Google to run Android.”

7:17 pm: Walt asks about tablets. Are they exciting to you? Are they important to you? Can they replace laptops for some people?

Rubin: I think what is going on in tablets is interesting. It’s fundamentally changing the model of computing interaction.

It is much more physical. You touch it. You feel it.

7:19 pm: What changes in the paradigm? It’s not a laptop. It’s not a phone.

Rubin points out that we used to have PDAs, but the cellphone eventually replaced it. The tablet is a sort of in-between device so the use case is less clear. You might definitely have it on the couch, but maybe not on the subway.

7:21 pm: Walt: What makes it more interesting and more immersive? There is something different there?

Rubin: If you do a good job, what you’ve done is make it a reflex. Like a car. You learn how to drive and you can drive almost any car. You don’t get distracted by things. That’s the result of many, many years of evolution. That’s true of any consumer product. They become almost like second nature for you.

7:24 pm: Kara and Walt ask about privacy.

Rubin: There is nothing in open source Android OS that sends keystrokes or what applications you use to Google.

He encourages people to look at the source code.

Walt: There are Google services that do collect certain things?

Rubin: Yes, like on other platforms. But he encourages people to read the company’s privacy policy.

7:27 pm: How do you overcome the perception that Google wants to collect more information than the others?

I think you just have to be transparent. You have open source–be inspectable. Any other interpretation is either FUD or just people who don’t understand.

7:28 pm: On to the goodie bag. Rubin pulls out a Nexus S. Says it is his personal device.

Kara: Oh good. She grabs it and pulls it close to her.

Now Rubin is showing the features, screen, etc. He’s talking about the Near Field Communications technology that is actually printed inside the back of the case. NFC allows a phone to scan specially printed tags.

Walt: Is that what sends all the information back to Google?

Rubin: Laughs. Goes back to demoing NFC and showing the Nexus S scanning a tag, which sends a URL for a video of the Nexus S to the phone, which then starts playing.

7:31 pm: Rubin talks about the applications: Buying coffee, getting coupons.

What we are hoping is third-party developers create a lot of cool apps. Devices can also use NFC to exchange contact info between two devices as well, kind of like beaming in the old Palm days.

7:32 pm: Rubin is talking abut the Nexus strategy.

To give a “Pure Google” phone. Google works with the hardware maker to take maximum advantage of Android’s features.

7:35 pm: What’s new with Gingerbread?

We added a garbage collector. Added broader voice over Internet Protocol support. Can cut, copy and paste without a trackball.

7:36 pm: Walt: What about video calling? I know there are third-party apps that do that. It seems like a natural thing that it belongs in the phone function.

Kara: FaceGoog or GoogleTime.

Rubin: There’s a whole bunch of software engineers hitting their keyboards back in Mountain View. If consumers want it, we’ll add it. [He strongly hints that it is coming, points out there already is Google video chat for PC.]

7:38 pm: Rubin reaches into his bag of tricks again. Pulls out a prototype Motorola tablet to show a forthcoming version of Google’s mobile map application.

7:38 pm: Shows the improved 3-D abilities and new panning and zooming options. What we are showing off here is some pretty cool performance.

“It will be available for cellphones in a matter of days,” Rubin says.

What allows the new presentation is that maps are no longer a series of tiles, but rather vector graphics.

7:40 pm: Vector data is smaller and more efficient, so users can load data in case they go offline. “You could load a whole state,” Rubin says.

This app runs on Android only for now, though it will work on tablets and phones.

Walt: What about PCs?

Rubin: That would be a natural extension.

7:41 pm: What version of Android is running on that tablet?

Rubin: Honeycomb [the next version of Android, due out some time next year]. There are no buttons on the Motorola tablet. He’s showing his personal email again.

7:43 pm: More on Honeycomb: We added new APIs to Honeycomb that allow an application to split its views to multiple views. On a a tablet they can be side by side, while on a phone they might be one after the other.

7:46 pm: On to Q&A.

7:46 pm: What about the Chrome OS team? What’s the delineation between the two?

Rubin: That’s a good question. Google was born on the Web. “I don’t think it would be doing its job unless it reinvested in the Web.”

But evolution of the Web had stagnated a bit, prompting Chrome. “It’s kind of slowed down a bit.”

Apps vs. Web?

There’s no need to argue. We’re doing both, Rubin says.

7:50 pm: What are the plans for the Android team to focus on the enterprise?

We did a little bit, Rubin says, but he likens it to baby steps. Support for VPN and some secure browsing. Gingerbread has some added features like remote wipe. Each release you will see more and more.

7:51 pm: App discovery. What are your plans?

Rubin: This is all evolving. The Android market is evolving as well. Gingerbread allows “related applications.” We are always adding features.

As a search company, if we can’t help you discover apps, I think we have a problem. We should be very easily able to organize a few hundred-thousand apps.

7:53 pm: Question about mobile payments; What is Andy Rubin’s vision? Groupon?

Rubin: I think there is a lot of opportunity. It is not an opportunity that is going to be seized by one company. Today Android does carrier billing integration, so you can put apps on your carrier bill. Creates an efficient micropayment option.

With Nexus S having added gyroscope capability, can see things from even within a store. Should help make, for example, better coupon apps.

7:57 pm: Android on TVs?

Rubin: That’s exactly what Google TV is. It is Android running on a set-top box. The first versions of that are running an Intel processor.

Have demonstrated the same app can run on both a three-inch screen or a flat-panel TV.

People are building all kinds of things. Refrigerators, ovens, automotive. Rubin says the nice thing about open source is that he and Google don’t have to be involved in every use. “We knew what to do to make it scale as widely as possible.”

7:58 pm: Question about carrier data plans and pricing.

Rubin: Average usage on an Android phone is 440MB a month. Rubin points out we are at a bandwidth crunch, but that it tends to be a cycle. New networks tend not to be overwhelmed by demand at first, but then the demands grow. Then new networks come along.

How should OEMs try to differentiate?

Rubin: I think HTC has done a really good job with Sense. Motorola has Blur. People are really differentiated.

Rubin says he often hears complaints about fragmentation. “Fragmentation” is the wrong word. Different phones do things differently, but that’s differentiation. Basically the apps are still compatible, Rubin says.

8:04 pm: Is Android too clunky? Will we see a sea change where Android really gets more user friendly?

Rubin: I would probably characterize Android today as an enthusiast product for early adopters–or wives of tech enthusiasts.

8:05 pm: Rubin says the company made some concessions that led to “geeking it out.” But then there are apps that offer easier customization and personalization.

8:07 pm: Walt points out places where it requires an extra step to do things like compose an email, while the iPhone does it in a single step.

Rubin: Yep. We get it. You will see the fruits of that investment in the tablets first and then in the phones. It’s going to get better. Honeycomb will be a good start

8:08 pm: Applause and they exit stage. ‘Night.

Earlier this week, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was all over the place talking up the company on the occasion of its 15th birthday.

Here’s a video of a longish interview she did with CBNC, embedded below, where she cracks wise a lot, but says little.

My favorite part: When the interviewer oddly asks if Yahoo (YHOO) is a trinket and Bartz pipes up that it is a bracelet!

Thankfully, we have the critical jewelry issue around Yahoo settled.

Bartz also gets a good one off about Facebook’s lack of revenue compared with Yahoo, after being asked why Yahoo was not as hot as the social networking phenom.

“Remind me, what’s their revenue?” she asked.

Bartz’s week also included a lunch with a group of reporters at its Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ–pretty much Lady BoomTown and a dozen dudes–Tuesday, at which she talked about a range of things, offered Sprinkles cupcakes and broke no substantive news.

She did give good quote though.

Bartz, for example, said she didn’t “wish antitrust on anybody,” when asked about Google (GOOG) and its issues with regulators in Europe.

She also noted, talking about the search giant’s recent conviction in Italy and its potential impact: “The [European Union] concerns me.”

But when talking about Google’s threat to leave China over censorship issues, Bartz was less kind. “It looked to me like it was more of a statement than an action,” she said. “If they wanted to pull out, they should have pulled out.”

Perhaps the most controversial remark was when she seemed to compare herself with Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, pointing out that his innovative turnaround of the iconic Silicon Valley computer company took a lot of time after he returned in 1996.

“He knew the DNA better than anyone and it took him four years,” she declared, noting her tenure was just over a year.

Perhaps her most important quote was related to losing search market share and seeing Facebook’s user growth close in on Yahoo.

Bartz said the real point at Yahoo was more “the fight to get ad dollars around relevant users.”

As in, from a jewelry point of view: Finding a diamond in the rough.

Here’s the video of the CNBC interview with Bartz:

BoomTown just got the following email from Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, the personal genetics start-up, about the departure of her co-founder, Linda Avey (pictured here). She will be starting a foundation related to Alzheimer’s disease.

The pair founded the high-profile company–whose Series A investors include Genentech (DNA), Google (GOOG) and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin–in 2006.

It has collected almost $23 million in funding.

Avey noted in an email to staff, which is posted in its entirety below: “I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.”

Wojcicki’s email reads, in part:

I wanted to let you know that Linda Avey will be leaving 23andMe to focus her energy on transforming Alzheimer’s research and treatment, leveraging the 23andMe platform. Linda and I have talked about doing research in Alzheimer’s since the inception of the company. Linda, whose father-in-law recently died from the disorder, will be leveraging 23andMe’s platform as she works to revolutionize the research, treatments and prevention for Alzheimer’s.

Linda will be greatly missed by me and my colleagues but we’re glad she will continue to be in a related field, and we are committed to continuing the work that she and I started three years ago.

And here is the email from Avey to the staff, as well as Wojcicki’s below it and then the official press release:

Dear all-

As I trust you all know, 23andMe is very special to me. I also recognize that the company has reached a critical point in its growth where new leadership can take it to the successful heights we all think it can achieve.

I’ve decided that I’d like to focus my efforts on an area that is personally significant and will continue to have a huge impact on our healthcare system–Alzheimer’s disease. Effective today, I’m leaving 23andMe and have begun making plans for the creation of a foundation dedicated to the study of this disorder. The foundation will leverage the research platform we’ve built at 23andMe–the goal is to drive the formation of the world’s largest community of individuals with a family history of Alzheimer’s, empower them with their genetic information and track their brain health using state-of-the-art tools. We’ve always planned to include Alzheimer’s in our 23andWe research mission…I’m just approaching it from a new angle.

Some of you might be aware that my father-in-law suffered from Alzheimer’s and passed away last year. For this reason, Randy and I are motivated to do what we can to improve the understanding of what leads to the debilitating symptoms and what might prevent them from starting in the first place. The ApoE4 association is barely understood but gives us a great starting point.

I’ll miss working with you but will be excited to hear about the progress I know you’ll be making!

All the best,
Linda

Team:

As Linda has told you, she will be leaving 23andMe to focus her energy on transforming Alzheimer’s research and treatment, leveraging the 23andMe platform. While I am quite sad to see her leave I am excited and hopeful as she takes on this mission. As Linda’s co-founder and partner over the last three years, it has been clear that revolutionizing research has been a primary passion. Our drive to change health care has always had roots in our personal lives and we have tried to structure 23andMe so that any individual or organization could actively participate in research. Linda and I have talked about doing research in Alzheimer’s since the inception of the company and the need for the Alzheimer’s community to have a strong leader. With Linda’s involvement, I believe that the APOE4 community could be the first asymptomatic community to successfully develop preventative treatments. I hope that going forward we’ll both be able to shake up and transform the health care space, making health care and treatments better for all.

Linda’s departure is also a sign of 23andMe’s maturation. When we started the company, the personal genetics industry did not exist; now it is a thriving and competitive landscape. Our company has grown and we continue to be an innovative industry leader. While our success has been exceptional, it is also clear we have a lot of work ahead. We have created a significant and empowering tool, but we must find new and better ways to promote the value of knowing your DNA. In the weeks ahead, we will outline a strategy for the company that we believe will make genetics a routine part of health care and will lead us to making significant research discoveries.

Linda has been instrumental in making 23andMe what it is today and we thank her for her passion and dedication to the company. We have many exciting opportunities before us, and I look forward to working with all of you to make 23andMe a spectacular success.

Anne

Linda Avey to Create Alzheimer’s Foundation

Mountain View, CA–September 4, 2009–Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andMe, an industry leader in personal genetics, announced today that she is leaving the company to start a new foundation focused on Alzheimer’s disease. Ms. Avey’s foundation will leverage the 23andMe research platform to search for causes and treatments for the disease, which afflicts more than 5.2 million people in the United States.

Ms. Avey and Anne Wojcicki founded 23andMe together in 2006. The company provides personalized genetic information through DNA analysis and allows individuals to interact with their private information through a variety of web-based tools.

“I could not be more proud of what we have accomplished in the three years since Anne and I created 23andMe, and I am excited to take the next step in applying my experiences to one of the great health challenges of our time,” said Ms. Avey, who has more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. “There is a clear need for revolutionary research and concentrated effort to confront Alzheimer’s, and we need to start now in order to make meaningful progress. The resources are out there–my goal is to marshal them to find answers for families, like mine, who have lost family members to such a debilitating disease.”

Concurrent with Ms. Avey’s announcement, Ms. Wojcicki said that 23andMe expects to make its genetic data platform available to Ms. Avey’s foundation in order to advance its research.

“Linda has been a true partner with me over these last three years, an innovative leader for our company and our industry, and instrumental in making 23andMe what it is today,” said Wojcicki. “It is only fitting that she will be making full use of our work together and leveraging the 23andMe platform for a tremendous cause. We look forward to joining her as a partner in her efforts.”

Ms. Avey’s departure announced today takes effect immediately.

Here is a video, in two parts, of Avey and Wojcicki demoing some new features of 23andMe at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference in 2008.

In the first one, they introduce 23andMe, explain the main service and ask News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Walt and me about our tolerance for milk and about our racing abilities. (Full disclosure: News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

In the second one, Avey and Wojcicki survey Murdoch on his genetic traits and show me what genes my kids have in common (and discover that I am not hyperactive).

Here are the D6 demos:

Indeed it could. Good luck proving it, though. Finding hard evidence that some of the nation’s largest tech firms have secretly negotiated agreements not to hire away each other’s top talent isn’t going to be easy. I can’t imagine there’s a paper trail of collusive memos between Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, Carol Bartz and Arthur Levinson. Then again, there’s no telling what a DOJ fishing expedition might turn up.

British lawmakers voted Monday to allow the use of human-animal embryos for research after an attempt to ban the technique was overwhelmingly rejected. At issue is a bill that permits scientists to blend human and animal DNA to make “chimeric” embryos from which stem cells can be extracted.

Scientists say the technique could aid the understanding of genetic defects and diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. But critics, who’ve taken a more hysterical view of the mingling of human and animal DNA, call it a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life. To them so-called “human-admixed embryos” recall the creatures of Marlon Brando’s fey, muumuu-wearing Dr. Moreau and his fantastical island.

Said MP Edward Leigh: “In embryos you do have the genetic makeup of a complete human being, and you cannot splice together a human and an animal. I’m not sure even my greatest political enemies would say that I was 30% a daffodil and 80% a mouse. I don’t believe in my soul or my brain I’m 80% a mouse or 30% a daffodil. But I do think that we are special and, therefore, as the human race is special, it is different from the animal race. And I think that we should take this very seriously.”

Thirty percent daffodil? Eighty percent mouse? Oh, you’re special all right, Leigh. Sure you read the right bill?

Anyway, as New Scientist’s Linda Geddes points out, this is all much ado about nothing. These “human-admixed embryos” aren’t really any more monstrous than you or I. “These embryos contain 99.9% human DNA, and 0.01% animal DNA,” writes Geddes. “Arguably I’m less than 99.9% human myself. Once you consider the billions of bacteria living in my gut and on my skin, the parasitic worms which may or may not be colonizing my intestines, and the fungi causing the itch between my toes, I’m a walking menagerie. In fact, some scientists have estimated that the total number of microbial genes in the human body outnumber human genes by up to 1,000 to 1.”

So I paid a visit a few weeks ago to the new offices of 23andMe, a start-up that has gotten a lot of attention for its unusual aim of joining together DNA research and social networking.

It’s an arena sure to be interesting, so here’s a video I made of my tour of 23andMe:

The service, which rolls out today with the launch of its Web site, bills itself as a “Personal Genome Service” and its motto is “Genetics Just Got Personal.”

And, indeed, the company–as well as several others (such as also Silicon Valley-based Navigenics)–hope a lot of people want to learn about their genes and what that information means, all in an attempt to carve out a lucrative new Web space by making DNA consumer-friendly.

The goal? For 23andMe, getting mainstream consumers to pay $999 for a personalized genomics assessment. For that price, a person spits out a largish saliva sample using an at-home kit, sends it in for intense analysis and then uses the site’s interactive tools to go to town with the scads of the DNA information.

That could mean everything from analyzing personal ancestry and genealogy to determining inherited traits to finding out way too much about proclivities for a range of scary diseases.

That presumably sets the stage for endlessly discussing all this genetic information within various personal and public social networks that might form. The font of all this juicy data comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

Hence, the company’s unusual name.

Also noteworthy has been the funding around the company, especially a $3.9 million investment from Google. The company initially had an early investment from Google co-founder Sergey Brin, whose investment was replaced by Google’s.

The issue? He was recently married to 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki (in addition, her sister Susan is a high-ranking executive at Google and provided Brin and other co-founder Larry Page with a garage space where the search company was first located).

This, of course, has attracted a lot of scrutiny to 23andMe’s founding–should Google have made the investment, even in an arms-length manner the company has said it used in determining its involvement, with someone so closely linked to Brin?–even though both Wojcicki and Linda Avey have much previous experience in the health-care and biotech sectors.

If the payoff is big, that issue will become moot. Other 23andMe investors are no slouches either, including Genentech and New Enterprise Associates. (Navigenics also has big backers in venture powerhouses Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Sequoia Capital.)

Of course, there might be even bigger controversies for all these companies, ranging from: the potential confusion all this detailed health information might bring to consumers; the thorny issues around privacy and the possibility that insurance companies might want to grab this rich vein of genetic information as it becomes available; and even the chance that some current genetic analysis given might turn out to be completely wrong.

Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 of a longer interview I did with Avey and Wojcicki.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

The company name comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

In this part, they talk about the privacy of DNA information and why we should trust any of these services, what the goal of collecting all this genetic information is, what it is like for two women to run a Web company and their own personal genetic details:

In addition, here’s a tour of the 23andMe offices and the first part of the interview.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (an investor in 23andMe).

The company name comes from the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each individual’s genome.

In this part, they talk about why customers would want to know a lot about their DNA and whether that information is helpful and informative (tracing your ancient lineage) or just plain scary (you could have a proclivity for a zillion scary diseases you never heard of before!):

In addition, here’s a tour of the 23andMe offices and the second part of the interview.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (an investor in 23andMe).

Researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center said this week that they had, for the first time, generated embryonic clones from a 10-year-old male rhesus macaque and then used those to produce colonies of embryonic stem cells. To achieve this, they injected the genetic material from a skin cell of an adult monkey into a monkey egg whose own DNA had been removed, extracting embryonic stem cells from the resulting early-stage embryo.

Quite an achievement and one that could speed advances in therapeutic cloning, if the techniques on which it’s based can be applied to human cells. “This opens doors to human embryonic cloning,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “Not the most efficient procedure but there it is, it opens that door. I’m not sure we knew before that people and primates were cloneable. But what works in monkeys will work in us.”

Researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center said this week that they had, for the first time, generated embryonic clones from a 10-year-old male rhesus macaque and then used those to produce colonies of embryonic stem cells. To achieve this, they injected the genetic material from a skin cell of an adult monkey into a monkey egg whose own DNA had been removed, extracting embryonic stem cells from the resulting early-stage embryo.

Quite an achievement and one that could speed advances in therapeutic cloning, if the techniques on which it’s based can be applied to human cells. “This opens doors to human embryonic cloning,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “Not the most efficient procedure but there it is, it opens that door. I’m not sure we knew before that people and primates were cloneable. But what works in monkeys will work in us.”