I think I'm nervous to find out I'm like not who I think I am.
I'm expecting to learn about kind of what I am.
Today we're doing a 23andMe test to find out if we actually are who we think we are.
We've been wanting to do this for a long time now,
We've actually spat into the vial and submitted the stuff to 23andMe a long time ago
before they reached out to even sponsor this video.
My family's like really mixed.
My dad's white.
But then my mom is born in India but also of like Welsh descent, I think
Sometimes I just call myself a mutt.
Don't know much about my ancestry.
I know that I went to Scotland once and my dad was like, "get our family tartan,"
and I was like, "we're Scottish?"
The name "23andMe" come from the fact that human DNA is organized into 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Their DNA analysis was created to help you understand your own DNA
and find out which parts of the world your ancestors are from, about your health, your physical traits and more.
The first thing we have to do is collect our spit so that we can mail it to 23andMe.
Whoaaa.
The process requires collecting two milliliters of your own saliva
and that means that 23andMe, which has over one million participants, as a company has collected over two thousand liters of saliva
which is disgusting but also kind of awesome.
[music]
We're gonna do Greg's results
right now.
Whoa!! [laughter] I am 99.99% European.
[laughter]
M: French and German. G: 2.8% French and German
Why do they group those together?
I'm 1.4% Scandinavian. This is not shocking to me at all.
So you're white.
Full British.
You most likely had a fourth great-grandparent who is 100% Yakut.
G: What's Yakut? M: That's cool.
Siberian.
Okay, so I'm like.. 99.9% British, 0.1% Siberian.
I'm gonna get a Siberian husky off of that one Yakut person who made it into my lineage in 1732.
Yours is lit up all around the globe, my friend.
Whoa. And there's India in there! Okay good, I haven't been lying to everyone
So I still am quite European.
Of which 32% is British.. 5.3% Chinese.
You have a bit of Korean!
That's my like Korean [incomprehensible]
[laughter]
I'm not sure if it's right to be so excited about like having like... a percentage point Korean in me
it's just cause I love Korean food and culture so much.
It feels really cool to have a little more of a definitive answer of my background.
I have 290 Neanderthal variants.
You look like a Neanderthal to me
Oh my god thank you, they're so big and beastly.
This is more than 69% of 23andMe customers.
Oh wow. So a lot of me is Neanderthal
M: Not surprising.
That explains a lot. I'm dirty.
I'll take it. M: Like, that's maybe where your like pain resistance comes from.
M: Wow. G: That is so not information I want you to have.
Look at it, look at your little [incomprehensible] jaw. [laughter]
Genetic information is pulled from our DNA using SNPs, which are relatively common variations in DNA-based pairs.
The saliva is broken into fragments and laid over a SNPchip, or a credit card-sized plate covered in DNA probes.
Analyzing these chips gives light into your ancestral background, as well as fun questions like "can you smell asparagus in your urine?"
or, "are you prone to male patterned baldness?"
M: Lighter skin... whoa. G: You are like even lighter skinned.
M: Oh, but it is light beige.
G: You're mostly light beige.
M: And then, have some olive in there. G: And then moderately fair, and then very fair then olive.
G: Wow. So your skin is fair, hence the burning, hence you need to wear sunscreen.
G: You are very susceptible to Mitch's farts. M: What?!
Weirdly specific.
M: You can smell asparagus in pee. G: Yeah, I can smell asparagus for sure. And I didn't even know people couldn't smell asparagus.
I always used to think it was that some people had smelly asparagus pee but it's like, just based on who can smell it.
G: Yeah, yeah. M: Everyone has it.
It says I'm likely a sprinter/power muscle type YEAH.
I used to run and sprint when I was a kid, but... like, not anymore.
I think everyone did too though. [laughter]
Well I have like, bad knees, bad back, like...
G: You're sprinter/power muscle type too, bro!
Oh my god, stop.
I'm not a sprinter.
It's, you know, perhaps a path I... I never took.
This is bull. I'm callin' bullshit on this.
M: Oh yeah.
Alcohol flush reaction: unlikely to flush.
Okay, so that is not true. I drink, I literally turn purple. That's just not the case for me.
It's not cool when you're partying with your friends to be turning purple and everyone be like, "are you okay?" and you're like, "I'm just trying to have fun."
You know, sometimes you feel like an impostor in your own body when you're a bit of like a mixed child.
You kind of don't know like where to belong and... but, knowing that that is truth now
I'm like, "oh, I don't have to like belong to one specific ethnicity."
That excites me. I love traveling, I love being engaged with other cultures and ethnicities so I feel like it's just an excuse to do that more.
And be like, "oh, it's in my blood! Like I need to go experience all these other things now."
We want to thank 23andMe for sponsoring this episode.
If you'd like to get your own kit, you can head to 23andMe.com/Asap. We'll put the links in the description and you'll be helping to support our show as well.
So we had so much fun doing this. You can do it too, you can find out about your ancestry but also your wellness and health.
We're about to leave and go look at ours really detailed.
Thanks again for watching, make sure you subscribe for more episodes of the Lab and we will see you next time.
Peace.