Good point.

Corollary question for consideration: Did cheetahs have this problem before the advent of modern poaching/hunting practices brought down their numbers drastically (assuming this was the case)?

Could we be witnessing, through globalization and the blurring of the lines between cultures, a minimization of variance and an increased risk of serious genetic disorders? Could this reduce our survivability as a species in the face of some dire consequence?

Honestly, I'm guessing we'll be able to engineer our way around any such problem, but I would; I'm here.

I said this all once here, but here it is again, just as pertinent:

I had a conversation and a dream about this just last week. No joke. And this time your tin foil hats won't help you.

I think the technology is there for the government to take genetic samples from everyone in the U.S. armed forces, and thereby build a database in which they could match any found genetic material by gene clade, and describe your relationship, and triangulate your placement in the larger family tree, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

More simply put, a hair or skin flake on the ground could tell them who your brother, cousin, second cousin, uncle, all in different branches of your family, are. With that information it wouldn't be hard to find you.

Really, I'd be more surprised to find out definitively that this wasn't already in place.

Anyway, I feel a bit like a nutter saying it, but with enough computing power, we already have algorithms that do almost, if not, all of this.

Ahh crud, that's what I get for only using analog search before posting.

Never trust the eyes. Sorry for the dupe.

The bandwidth on Ethernet-over-powerline is total garbage.

Has anyone considered metal conduit? Rats can't eat steel.

I had a conversation and a dream about this just last week. No joke. And this time your tin foil hats won't help you.

I think the technology is there for the government to take genetic samples from everyone in the U.S. armed forces, and thereby build a database in which they could match any found genetic material by gene clade, and describe your relationship, and triangulate your placement in the larger family tree, with a reasonable degree of certainty.

More simply put, a hair or skin flake on the ground could tell them who your brother, cousin, second cousin, uncle, all in different branches of your family, are. With that information it wouldn't be hard to find you.

Really, I'd be more surprised to find out definitively that this wasn't already in place.

Anyway, I feel a bit like a nutter saying it, but with enough computing power, we already have algorithms that do almost, if not, all of this.

No seriously, though.

The United States Military isn't, in my opinion (get out your tin-foil hats), in the habit of developing a brand-new and potentially game-winning technology, and promptly running to the phone to make a press release. Between this and several other more benign, as several medical advances reported on recently, I can't help but wonder what has happened in the international community that would prompt this type of activity. What type of non-public intel would instigate a response of this kind from the U.S. Military, an organization that has previously only let the world know they had radar evading aircraft some twenty years (or some such) after they had been in operation? Could it be that some other potentially less-than-friendly has developed some other or similar "Star Wars" type tech? And, I mean other than those we currently suspect of trying to develop nukes.

And please, don't hesitate to tell me I can go back to my conspiracy theorist secret bunker, as I've got plenty of canned food to last.