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23andme for only $99 today only
- Tichy 17y agoDoes anybody how it works if you order several kits - can every test person still get their own account? Looking to share the order with friends to save shipping costs.
- ovi256 17y agoI wish it was true, because I see it starting at $399. Could you clarify grandalf ?
- kmak 17y agoThe 499$ version was at 99$ maybe ten minutes ago. I can't tell if it just expired or got changed. It said this was "today only for DNA day", which is Friday, so at least on the East Coast it should still run. Maybe they ran out of some pre-alloted quota?
- ovi256 17y agoYeah I guess it must be the quota. A pity, because I want to do it, but can't spare the cash yet.
- proexploit 17y agoCan they do that legally? It said "today only" and "limit 10 per customer", not "while supplies last". There's no accompanying legalese, so shouldn't they be legally obligated to honor their offer until 11:59PM?
- robhu 17y agoWhy wouldn't they be able to? A company can take down or put up any offer they want whenever they want. Once they've taken your money you've entered in to a contract with them, but before that they can do whatever they want.
- proexploit 17y agoThen why don't I create a ad that says: "Pre-notice of amazing sale! Order tomorrow and receive 95% off your purchase!" and then change it at 11:59PM so that it's no longer valid. My example is extreme, but shouldn't they have considered that before they posted an offer with only two qualifying statements?! Edit: I'm certainly not a legal professional, so my opinion is not the law. On most print advertisements, I see advertisers give a disclaimer such as "We are not required to offer any mistakes in printing etc." This covers them legally since they need to advertise honestly.
- falien 17y agoMy guess is, at least in most places that disclaimer isn't what covers them. The disclaimer is to discourage the people who will stand at the customer service counter arguing for 3 hours to get their 5 pounds of steak for a dollar.
- jamesbritt 17y agoI just ordered at the discount. Check the site again.
- proexploit 17y agoI've ordered as well. Looks like they were still working with it. My argument is still interesting, although no longer valid to this particular situation. Thanks for the update.
- Mc_Big_G 17y agoLooks like they took it down. Google cache: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:kcsPmk5S0B4J:https://www.23andme.com/+23andme+%2499&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:kcsPmk5S0B4J:https://ww... I would have bought at least 5.
- jaybol 17y agoIt is back up
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- invisible 17y agoWell that is disappointing (it no longer shows up as $99). Maybe they'll add more quota throughout the day - I sure hope so at that price.
- madh 17y agoI just purchased at $99, so the deal is back!
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Tawheed 17y agoSending some company my DNA freaks me out more than Facebook's like-strategy to take over the Internet.
- huhtenberg 17y agoThey require no verifiable personal information. You can send your spit in as John Doe.
- jfornear 17y agoWhat happens when John Doe becomes the suspect in a murder? ;) EDIT: In all seriousness, as this technology becomes cheaper and more advanced/insightful, I can imagine a future where these tests are required by the government in the name of cost efficiency. Then it will become a matter of trusting the government to guard and use our information responsibly...
- eps 17y agoYou may want to see the Gattaca movie ;)
- jamesbritt 17y agoWell, there's payment info attached to tests.
- jonknee 17y agoPay with a prepaid credit card. They're handy for all sorts of things. http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/visa_gift_card.html http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/visa_gift_card.ht...
- Tawheed 17y agoFalse. Unless they are taking my order over the phone which I block through caller id and take my payment in CASH and send my results to a random drop location, it is not anonymous at all.
- icey 17y agoEdit - It's back up, see the response below. I was complaining that people were upvoting when the deal appeared to be down.
- grandalf 17y agoI just bought one, not sure what you're talking about.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- mbreese 17y agoIt's still available... You have to go to the front page (https://www.23andme.com/ https://www.23andme.com/). From there, you can still see the deal. When you click "Buy" your cart has the $499 price, with a $400 discount.
- crad 17y agoConfirmed, I just purchased two.
- anelson 17y agoIt just worked for me too. Sweet!
- billpaetzke 17y agoExcellent. Just bought six for myself, parents, etc.
- gabeiscoding 17y agoAwesome, just bought one for myself, my wife and my unborn son. Now I wonder if I can stall on returning his DNA until he's born in June...
- billpaetzke 17y agoYou have 12 months to return your sample for processing.
- gabeiscoding 17y agoYea, that's great. I just saw that in the info email they sent me. It was worth taking a chance at this price even before knowing. Also nice is with the complete package you can download your data. Maybe not useful to a lot of people, but I build genetic analysis software for a living (mostly focused on academic research - goldenhelix.com), so it will be quite fun to pull in my data and play around with it.
- araneae 17y ago
- baran 17y agoBack online
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- wesley 17y agoInternational shipping is pretty expensive: $70 - does that include sending it back?
- robryan 17y agoSounded like it, the FAQ mentioned it ships with a prepaid return, still it does feel a little expensive.
- heyitsnick 17y agoSeems fairly reasonable to me. $70 for 2 priority international fedex shipments. Also I'm not sure, but shipping saliva may undergo more costs than your normal international shipments. The FAQ talks about certain customs forms that need to be filled in. I went ahead and purchased. Been intrigued by the service for a while but found the costs prohibitive; hard to pass up an 80% discount, for me they've reduced the price down in to "impulse buy" territory.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ghshephard 17y agoI Just bought six of these. I'm stoked - this is precisely what I've been waiting for for my family. I actually discovered I was lactose intolerant (after 30+ years) through 23andme - somehow that little detail got by me... :-)
- kyro 17y agoSo you discovered you were lactose intolerant after 30 years, and throughout those years, you've presumably been drinking milk. Don't you think you would've been just as fine growing old without knowing you couldn't break down lactose?
- starkfist 17y agoLactose intolerance is not life threatening but knowing you have it can really increase your quality of life. It manifests itself as feeling bloated, having bad gas, and diarrhea. People who don't know they have it often assume that having the farts and feeling gross all the time is just a normal state of being. Women who have it often guess that it related to PMS. (My girlfriend was diagnosed with lactose intolerance in her late 20s) When they figure out it's the milk and cheese and avoiding it makes the lower GI stuff goes away it can really make them much happier.
- ebiester 17y agoThe same thing happened to me. Now, luckily I can handle small amounts of cheese, but I overload my body's buffers more quickly than most. That's one of the things I'm most curious about -- am I genetically intolerant, or was I just drinking too much?
- ghshephard 17y agoHeh - you clearly _aren't_ lactose intolerant. Through the simple (and relatively inexpensive) act of popping a lactase tablet before anything with milk, my life got a _whole_ lot better. It's embarrassing how much better things are. When I first got the results, I was like "Woah - 23andMe is broken - _I'm_ not Lactose intolerant" - that's what happens when you live with something your entire life - you baseline off a miserable experience and believe it to be the best you can do. Genomics certainly improved my life. :-)
- sunchild 17y agoWhat's the deal with the freaky message about not being able to send spit tests from NY State? Can anyone explain that issue to me?
- mshafrir 17y agoThey can't accept samples from NY, or they can't send them to NY? I got the same message for Maryland, so I just sent them to my friend's place in Virginia.
- agotterer 17y agoIn April 2008, New York State's Department of Health sent warning letters to six online genetic testing companies, including 23andme, notifying them that they cannot offer New York state residents genetic tests without a permit nor can they offer them without authorization from a physician. (wikipedia)
- BioGeek 17y agoThe health department of the stae of New York considers 23andMe’s genome scan to be a medical test that must be approved by regulators and ordered by a doctor. A competing company, Navigenics, successfully applied to have its test licensed in New York. It has essentially put aside marketing to consumers, aiming instead at doctors. It is also courting corporations that might use the test as part of their employee wellness programs. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/business/20consumergenebar.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/business/20consumergenebar...
- jacquesm 17y agoThink twice before you give away your DNA and pay for the privilege.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- enomar 17y agoI'd like to hear from those that wouldn't do this. What are your reasons for not trusting this site?
- jacquesm 17y agoWell, today they're 23andme, arguably in fairly rough waters (which is probably the reason for this promotion in the first place). Tomorrow they could be sold to the highest bidder, who might not feel they were bound to the terms of service of their predecessor. It could be an insurance company, for instance. And based on your name, your genetic data and a whole bunch of other factors they might decide to deny you or one of your descendants coverage. That's just one scenario, I'm sure there are plenty of others with various degrees of chance of becoming reality.
- aniketh 17y agoWouldn't they be tied to the agreement that you had when you signed up for the data? I always thought that you'd have to agree with new "terms-of-use" whenever they change
- jacquesm 17y agoJust to give you an example, I just bought at an auction the complete contents of a defunct company. Amongst the stuff I got was their servers and their bookkeeping. I never entered in to any agreement with the people whose data is stored on those servers, and yet I have all of it. A 'survival clause' that would guarantee destruction of your data in case the company goes out of business would be a minimum here. But instead, 23andme says in their privacy policy: "We may use Genetic and Phenotypic Information to conduct 23andMe-authorized scientific research and development. Any Phenotypic Information you provide is done on a voluntary basis. We may provide third party organizations access to this information for scientific research, but without your name or any other Account Information." And that's the kicker, so your full genome gets sold to some 3rd party (you don't even get to know who) and all they do is strip off the 'meta data' regarding your person. And AOL and NETFLIX have already shown that anonymization of data is a myth.
- mikebo 17y agoHow long before 23andme gets a 'share your dna on Facebook' button?
- fbailey 17y agoI'm going to do just that
- wesley 17y agoCan anyone tell me if this comparison is pretty accurate? http://www.decodeme.com/product-comparison http://www.decodeme.com/product-comparison Seems like the snp coverage is a lot lower (green = 23andme).
- aheilbut 17y agoI don't doubt it, but $99 << $2000. The technologies are going to continue to improve over the next few years until we all get cheap whole-genome sequencing, so just expect to re-do your analysis a few times as the cost drops and coverage improves.
- bbgm 17y agoMike Cariaso, who does SNPedia (http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia), and knows what he is talking about, says that 23andme offers the best SNP/$ ratio of the DTC providers
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- infinite8s 17y agoThis is a great deal, although I'm torn. We are about to add a new member to our family, so this would make an awesome 0th birthday gift, but the prospects of knowing all the health information up front is rather scary (and who knows who might be able to access it in the future - it needs some sort of secure swiss bank setup). Welcome to Gattaca!
- jacquesm 17y ago> and who knows who might be able to access it in the future - it needs some sort of secure swiss bank setup That's exactly my problem with this. And no amount of anonymization will help here, after all, not even your finger prints identify you as solidly as your full genome does.
- mechanical_fish 17y agoIf you're gonna be paranoid about Gattaca you need to go all the way. DNA sequencing is going to be so cheap that it will be more cost-effective to sequence your ambient DNA from an elevator button or a used tissue than to look up your obsolete sequence data from some old 20th-century corporate database. The problem of misuse of DNA sequence information may be very real, but whether or not you do business with 23andme is probably an insignificant blip. We need legal safeguards, not minor-league personal boycotts.
- jacquesm 17y agoMinor league personal boycotts can raise the awareness and lead to better legal safeguards.
- eande 17y agoJust bought 2 kits at 10:02AM PST, so offer is still there.
- bradfordw 17y agoSend your $99 to me. I'll pick a disease at random and you likely have a better, if not, as good a chance at getting it based on how they calculate risks. Today only, I'll do it for $9.
- Aron 17y agoThis is only upvote worthy if it's premise is true. For that, we need evidence.
- infinite8s 17y agoFor free, I'll tell you that you are fairly likely to get some kind of cancer.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- gwern 17y ago> "What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously. "I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue."
- QNguyen 17y agoThe dangerous thing about these tests is that they only show if you have a marker for a particular diseases/affliction . This doesn't mean that you'll get the disease - we're still amateurs at this technology and I don't know if I want to live my life perpetually fearful of a disease that I have a marker for, but no relevant data on what the chance that I'll actually get that disease.
- baran 17y agoI think you have to take these results with a grain of salt. Its better to know ahead of time so you can begin to take steps to ensure that you dont have problems in the future. Genetic predispositions are only a factor, environment and other epigenetic factors also play a major role in determing your phenotype.
- QNguyen 17y agoAgreed, but it's important that companies like 23andme don't market these tools as a complete tool for knowing what you'll get in the future, since there's still plenty more research to be done on many of these markers (and they're definitely not all inclusive of the diseases we face).
- araneae 17y agoI guess it depends on what kind of person you are. I'm pretty comfortable with applying probability to my daily life, so it wouldn't bother me at all.
- biotech 17y agoFor those who are concerned about privacy, you could request that they delete your information after you have received the product. It says in their refund policy: You can, however, request deletion of your genetic data by providing us with written notice to help@23andme.com. We will delete your genetic data from our records within 30 days of receipt of such notice.
- infinite8s 17y agoExcept their product can only be accessed through their website as a webapp.
- dc2k08 17y agoThis is true. If you want your data completely erased from their system, then neither you or 23&me will have access to that data any longer. Your data is presented to you online only. While they have your data, your data might be sent to third parties but not at the individual level unless you give them consent.
- teye 17y agoPretty sure you're able to download your raw data. (Just bought this a couple weeks ago... waiting for my analysis.)
- dejb 17y agoYes you can download it and then you can use a tool like Promethease to link provide a report on how your SNPs match up with various research on SNPedia. It's a bit rough but it certainly has lots more info than the reports from 23andme.
- Luc 17y agoThanks for this - I ordered 2 sets. $70 shipping to Europe (which I only got charged once).
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- lisp123 17y agoI'm going to collect samples from potential mates and send them in to see what they're hiding from me.
- spoiledtechie 17y agoThanks to whom posted this. I just bought one, but wish I could have bought one for my entire family...
- dantheman 17y agoYou can buy 10.
- japanesejay 17y agoNice!! Thanks! I learned about this site and service at TEDxB. I am very excited to try this out!
- bsergean 17y agoI just had a daughter and it freaks me out to know this kind of datas ...
- ankeshk 17y agoSeems like 23andMe doesn't ship to either India or China. They are leaving out half the world's population! (I'm from India and would have loved to buy their $99 special - even if shipping was $99 more.)
- kwyjibo 17y agoMaybe they don't have enough genome research result data for Indian or chinese people, so it wouldn't make much sense to sell a product without being able to show results.
- crocowhile 17y agoIs there a sample of how the result looks like? I want to know what markers are sequenced. edit: found here https://www.23andme.com/user/signup/ https://www.23andme.com/user/signup/
- anurag 17y agoDetailed 23andme review by HN'er PStamatiou who tried it out recently: http://paulstamatiou.com/review-23andme-dna-testing-for-health-disease-ancestry http://paulstamatiou.com/review-23andme-dna-testing-for-heal... Comments thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1170074 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1170074
- ErrantX 17y agoSold. This kind of stuff fascinates me and I personally am willing to take the privacy risk if I can find out a little more about ME :) I was waiting for it to come under $99 so it's good to see it happen earlier than expected :D
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- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- zackattack 17y agoGoogle already has too much information on me. No thanks!
- jamesbkel 17y agoNot to add to the noise, but was this deal based on GMT? Just went to order a 4-pack for the family and it seems gone again....
- DrewHintz 17y agoYes, the deal is finished: http://twitter.com/23andMe/status/12732636102 http://twitter.com/23andMe/status/12732636102 It ended at midnight GMT which is also 5pm PDT, perhaps for the business day.
- jamesbkel 17y agoCertainly can't blame them for placing a limit, it's quite the deal. However, it was frustrating when I already had the $99 deal in my cart, then lost it because I didn't check out before 0 GMT.
- wanderr 17y agoExact same thing happened to me. Disappointing, to say the least, especially since I couldn't find any info on the site that said that was the ending time.
- lionhearted 17y agoEmail them graciously, tell them you think they have a lovely service and that the deal is a steal, tell them you lost it right at checkout, and ask if they can take care of you. I'd bet they will, they seem like they're run by nice and smart people.
- wanderr 17y agoI sure hope so, because that's exactly what I did. I got an automated response that they have a massive backlog of support requests (suprise!) And it'll be 3 or so business days, so we'll see...
- mdolon 17y agoI wish I had an identical twin so we could split the costs.
- timcederman 17y agoI was going to make a facetious comment about this earlier, but instead I did actually email my twin and we went halves on a kit.
- carbocation 17y agoHuman genetics research fellow here (well, it's one of my hats). For those of you who signed up for 23andMe, or who wanted to, can you explain your rationale to me?
- khafra 17y agoI would've bought it for $99, but I didn't seem to have access to that deal. I hope I know sooner if it comes around again. The reason is that I have an aunt who's really interested in genealogy. Genetically tracing her heritage back to Lucy seems like an awesome Christmas present; and quite a bit of the health-related stuff should be applicable to me too, if she shared all the data.
- carbocation 17y agoThey're using one of the 600,000 SNP chips, it seems, so that is plenty powerful to derive ancestry information. The they explicitly say that their product should not be used for trying to divine health predictions, and for most diseases I would agree with them. My guess is that risk prediction for a substantial set of diseases probably won't be done well until 2020 or so. We've only just begun to open the spigot.
- c00p3r 17y agoYeah. We're now collecting your data (DNA) to resell it in the future. The storage and processing power are really cheap and will become even cheaper, while demand for a DNA information in digital form will rise. Add to this the launch fast and evolve mantra, plus being backed by google's money and (probably) technology and you got a very promising business. Data is money. There is why facebook is still alive.
- friendstock 17y agoI think the sale is over.... unless there is a link to it?
- ComputerGuru 17y agoI'm surprised I'm the first to mention this here, am I really the only one that feels this way? I don't want to know what diseases I could have. I'm happy living my life by the day and planning for a future that I'd love to have. I'd hate to discover I'm susceptible to x, y, and z; and that if I were to have a kid it would likely have a, b, c.... I'd rather jus live and let live. No need to worry about stuff that may not come to pass, and no need to brood about something even if it is, in the end, inevitable.
- falien 17y agoAlmost nothing is inevitable, and even things that are can be planned for to optimize your situation. I suppose it depends on your personality though, how you would end up dealing with the knowledge.