While you might not expect it to be, Prime Day is actually a great time to order a DNA kit. Over the years, kits from various providers have been deeply discounted during the sale, and this year is no exception. Prime Day 2019 features sales on kits from AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and Living DNA.
We had an opportunity to test many of these kits, and each of them has its own distinct advantages. For AncestryDNA, it’s the tie in the company’s family tree service, while 23andme excels in its capabilities to give you not only a clear view of your heritage but your susceptibility to genetic health issues. If you have ancestry of British descent, you’ll find a ton of information within Living DNA’s results.
If you’re interested solely in your ancestry and are a user of Ancestry’s family tree service, the basic Genetic Ethnicity Test is your best option. AncestryDNA tests your DNA against the genetic traits of more than 500 regions to give you a stunningly precise idea of where you’re from. It can even help you trace your ancestry back to the earliest humans, which is pretty darn cool if you ask us. In our experience, you’ll get your results in about one month, and once your DNA is sequenced, your results update automatically based on new discoveries.
While up until recently AncestryDNA only focused on the ancestral side of things, the service offers a new option which includes results on 26 personal traits on things like birth weight, your food preferences, and body traits like earlobes, hair thickness, and so forth. While it is nowhere near as extensive as 23andMe’s Health and Ancestry Service which we talk about next, it is cheaper.
We’re big fans of 23andMe because it is by far the most comprehensive for DNA-based information on your health and ancestry. Unfortunately, it’s pretty expensive — $199 for the whole package, which is by far the most for any we’ve tested. Thankfully for Prime Day, you can get this package for just $100 — which is by far the cheapest we’ve seen so far for what we think is the best DNA test out there. The results are easy to follow, and not only do you get information on genetic traits like the AncestryDNA kit we just shared, but also your susceptibility to genetically related health problems.
While LivingDNA’s kit isn’t the greatest Prime Day deal, we include it here because as a U.K.-based company, it has by far the best genetic database on U.K. genetics. If your relatives hail from this region, we’d recommend trying out this kit first to get a better idea of your ancestry here. A word of warning, however — those that may have a more mixed heritage might find the previous two tests better suited — Living DNA’s database is a little light when it comes to genomes from outside the region.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.