Your Spit Can Help Scientists Understand US Migration Patterns
Your DNA can help scientists tell the history of migration patterns across post-colonial United States, a new study revealed. Researchers from Ancestry, a Utah-based genealogy company, collected more than 77,000 spit samples taken from customers in a span of five years. They also gathered information about the customers' family trees.
All these genetic data were used by Ancestry to trace and map out more than 60 genetic communities that emerged in the US from the 1800s to the 1900s.