Use DNA to choose a sports for your child? No thanks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/sports/30genetics.html?no_interstitial

BOULDER, Colo. — When Donna Campiglia learned recently that a genetic test might be able to determine which sports suit the talents of her 2 ½-year-old son, Noah, she instantly said, Where can I get it and how much does it cost?

“I could see how some people might think the test would pigeonhole your child into doing fewer sports or being exposed to fewer things, but I still think it’s good to match them with the right activity,” Ms. Campiglia, 36, said as she watched a toddler class at Boulder Indoor Soccer in which Noah struggled to take direction from the coach between juice and potty breaks.

“I think it would prevent a lot of parental frustration,” she said.

In health-conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.

The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.

In this era of genetic testing, DNA is being analyzed to determine predispositions to disease, but experts raise serious questions about marketing it as a first step in finding a child’s sports niche, which some parents consider the road to a college scholarship or a career as a professional athlete.

Atlas executives acknowledge that their test has limitations but say that it could provide guidelines for placing youngsters in sports. The company is focused on testing children from infancy to about 8 years old because physical tests to gauge future sports performance at that age are, at best, unreliable.

Some experts say ACTN3 testing is in its infancy and virtually useless. Dr. Theodore Friedmann, the director of the University of California-San Diego Medical Center’s interdepartmental gene therapy program, called it “an opportunity to sell new versions of snake oil.”

“This may or may not be quite that venal, but I would like to see a lot more research done before it is offered to the general public,” he said. “I don’t deny that these genes have a role in athletic success, but it’s not that black and white.”

Dr. Stephen M. Roth, director of the functional genomics laboratory at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health who has studied ACTN3, said he thought the test would become popular. But he had reservations.

“The idea that it will be one or two genes that are contributing to the Michael Phelpses or the Usain Bolts of the world I think is shortsighted because it’s much more complex than that,” he said, adding that athletic performance has been found to be affected by at least 200 genes.

Dr. Roth called ACTN3 “one of the most exciting and eyebrow-raising genes out there in the sports-performance arena,” but he said that any test for the gene would be best used only on top athletes looking to tailor workouts to their body types.

“It seems to be important at very elite levels of competition,” Dr. Roth said. “But is it going to affect little Johnny when he participates in soccer, or Suzy’s ability to perform sixth grade track and field? There’s very little evidence to suggest that.”

The study that identified the connection between ACTN3 and elite athletic performance was published in 2003 by researchers primarily based in Australia.

Those scientists looked at the gene’s combinations, one copy provided by each parent. The R variant of ACTN3 instructs the body to produce a protein, alpha-actinin-3, found specifically in fast-twitch muscles. Those muscles are capable of the forceful, quick contractions necessary in speed and power sports. The X variant prevents production of the protein.

The ACTN3 study looked at 429 elite white athletes, including 50 Olympians, and found that 50 percent of the 107 sprint athletes had two copies of the R variant. Even more telling, no female elite sprinter had two copies of the X variant. All male Olympians in power sports had at least one copy of the R variant.

No thanks, not for me.  I'd exposed my kids to all kinds of sports, games and activities, and let them choose.  Excelling comes from putting in effort.  They must like it and have fun too.

What parental frustration?  It only comes from unrealistic expectations - not just from performance, but also what doing these sports are supposed to achieve.

On citizenship

Every now and then, someone would write to the press and suggest Singapore allows dual-citizenship in order to attract new talents and retain local talents.

Let me say from the beginning that an individual's concept of citizenship is very much shaped by personal experience, exposure and thinking.

My take is against multi-national citizenship - hey, there is nothing against having more than two if you think two is okay, right?

Ideally, everybody is a citizen of the world, of the planet Earth, of the Solar System.  Well, unfortunately, it is an ideal that many people is not prepared for.  I believe most people are still protective of the notion that certain they have the right over certain territories that others do not.

Back to citizenship - citizenship to me is not about what places or countries you feel a sense of belonging to, or fondness or loyalty.  A guy who has a British father, American mother, born in Australia, grew up in Singapore, studied in Italy, worked in Canada, married a Spanish and retired in France can have strong sense of fondness or loyalty to all or more than one of these countries.

But when it comes to one's duty as a citizen, one country has to take first priority.  It may be to serve military service, or it may be to defend one's country in times of crisis - if the call comes from more than 1 at the same time, one can only be there for 1 country.

It does not matter whether you will, out of sense of fond memories or sense of justice, volunteer to help another country if there is such a need.

As a citizen of my chosen country, I count as fellow citizens only those who can be counted to be with my country during her time of need, not those who opt to be with another country of his dual-citizenship when both are in need at the same time.

If your priority is with the other country, then please by all means be a citizen of that country instead of being a citizen here.

It may be that Singapore is small and cannot afford to have citizenry who cannot be relied upon to put the country first over another country.

One of the many things I have against multi-national citizenship is that while a single-national citizen can be expected to vote for the best interests of his country, which country's best interests would a dual-national citizen vote for, especially when the 2 country's interests are in conflict?

Hypothetically, take a UK-US dual citizen : as an eligible voter, he could vote for UK's interests in UK, and as a US citizen, vote for UK's interests rather than US's interests.

Hypothetically, a citizen's vote is assumed to be what he believed to be in his country's best interests, even if his decision differs from a fellow's citizen.  The assumption is based on the fact that he will be there to experience the consequences, for better or worse, and he is ultimately in the same boat as other fellow citizens.

But he is a dual-citizen, he can vote against the interest of one country and enjoy the benefits as a citizen of the other country.

I believe there should only be 1 class of citizens (not 2 classes such as proposing dual-citizens do not have right to vote), and all the citizens must be theoretically be on the same boat.

People of the same boat may disagree, but they will share whatever fate befalls on the boat.

As for attracting or retaining talents, I believe the whole world is open to anyone who wants to travel anywhere.  Having that piece of citizenship paper does not restrict anyone from going anywhere.

If Singapore offers what a talent wants, the talent will be here regardless of whether he is a citizen.

I abhor mixing other incentives such as unemployment benefits for citizens, housing subsidies etc., when it comes to considering whether to give up a particular citizenship or taking up a particular citizenship.

Being a citizen of a country is not like taking up membership of a country club or signing up as a customer of a bank.  There are serious obligations as a citizens as much as benefits.

During my minority years, I lived in several different countries, and when I chose to take up Singapore citizenship as an adult, I did it because I wanted to, and I felt the country of my former nationality had done things wrong, alienating me from it.  I felt no desire to be a citizen of such a country, and while Singapore was not perfect, I felt affection for the country and have a strong sense of belonging here.

During the course of my career, I had seriously considered moving to work in another country, but I had never considered giving up my Singapore citizenship.

Should circumstances in the future made me change my mind to take up another country's citizenship, I will only do it by giving up this one.

Deadline for SZJ translation

Start:	Feb 28, '09 12:00p
Location:	Online

This is the target date to finish the last phase of San Zi Jing translation.
Originally, the publishers wanted it by end December!

If we were communicating in Hokkien, I'd have say "Oi, seow ay."

November 2008 updates

Time to jot down some thoughts and updates in my life ...

At work ...

They reorganised us, again.  2 of the IT's top staff are leaving, 1 retiring, the other quit.  Incidentally, both only joined around 2003 as part of the parent company's move to restructure the way IT services are provided for in the company.

P, who is retiring, had joined after LML left.  LML was also an outsider brought in to revamp the division.  Until that time, all the senior managements and VP level staff were all promoted in-house, so the change in direction, coupled with these new people brought in, saw a lot of conflicts at the top (of the division) with many long time senior staff forced out.  It was not a pretty picture.

But the worst thing P could have done was not that she joined just prior to the first Retrenchment Exercise ever in the company, but that the morning the retrenchment was announced and staff notified, while many long serving staff who remained were still sobbing, P went around chasing them to "get back to work."

The year after, our long-time Union rep took early retirement for health reasons - I took the chance to speak to him about the new ladies at the top.  I found retiring staff are usually most candid and less biased.  As member of the Union, he did participate in negotiations with senior management.  And he did share that P is not very considerate of the staff as people ... a feeling I had then.

Now that she's retiring, I found out from some staff who worked with her that she was quite professional.  I had never worked with her, so I do not know if that was another side I never saw or that she changed.

The other senior staff who is leaving, A, had been described as being more sympathetic by the Union rep.  I wasn't too keen on her because during 1 year, I was supposed to have transferred to her department.  But there was no news for a long, long time, and then I learned from my manager that the transfer was cancelled because A didn't want me due to blemishes in my past performance.

I got really angry, not because of the rejection, but because the matter was kept hanging in the air.  And I was angry at my manager because during the talk with her, she implied the fiasco of the whole thing hanging was my fault.  Bull.  My past performance was

What the current DBS retrenchment makes me think of ...

1. I better find time to do my translations and write up on the history of Qin ... though the "True History of the Three Kingdoms" might garner for attention.

I don't forsee retrenchment in my company, but then again, few entrenched staff ever did.  My company had its 1st and only round so far in 2003.  2008 might not need it, but there is no telling what the future holds.

Fact is, while the company has been constantly restructuring itself, I never really had the passion for my job(s) and I started working here thinking it would only be a temporary thing.  The lack of passion is the thing that kept me from putting myself into it and exploring and asking for transfers here and there to get into the core of the business.

I am the headache of the HR and my bosses 'cos I'm just never quite there.

2. I am very heartened by what Snowylady said about me - she's confident that even if I lose my job, I'll seek and take whatever job I can to keep earning a living and supporting the family, and I won't consider any valid jobs to be beneath me.

More jottings from recent news ...

1. Campaign to end use of tissue packs to reserve tables at food courts & hawker centres

My take: if you can come up with a better idea, please do so.  Otherwise, it's no worse than any other ways.  Visitors to Singapore might find the notion repulsive, but hey, it is a home-grown culture, nothing particularly uncouth about it.  If people in other countries prefer to hunt around for seats after getting their food, that's fine too - trends and customs grew out of what majority of the people adopt.

Not all trends are good - Singapore's custom for starting Chinese wedding dinner late for example - but it is wrong to judge it bad simply because it is foreign to you.

 

2.  Euthanasia legalised?

My take: take personal responsibility for yourself.  In Singapore, AMD is available.  If AMD doesn't cover your circumstances, and you know your decision is to end your life instead of continuing in sufferings, do yourself (& everybody else) a favour by making preparations by yourself while you are still physically able to.  And when the time comes, say your goodbyes, distribute your possessions, and do it yourself - don't implicate/involve others.  Call it suicide if you will.  Your life, your responsibility.

I don't encourage it, but I can't oppose it too much if it's your life.  Just don't get others involved where they have to make decision on your behalf or administer the lethal process for you - it is not fair for other people to bear the burden.

 

3.  Obama wins.

Obama is not Santa Claus, so can the world please stop sending him their christmas wish list?

His new responsibility is to his country, not other countries.  He's got a big job getting fundamentals restored as pillars of the economy.  Displacing big-business influenced Republicans is the easy part - doing the same to big business influenced Democrats is going to be harder.

 

4. Non-Chinese-ethnic PM for Singapore?

My take: Why not?  What bad things could have happened if LKY did go ahead to endorse Dhanabalan as PM as he claimed of having considered?  At the least, it would have brought the issue into the open and allowed students and people to engage in critical thinking about it if there is really an issue about it to begin with.

Unfortunately, recent and past personal experiences do tell me that LKY was at least right that there're many Chinese Singaporeans who are not ready to accept it.

Some VIP from the Establishment told me a couple of months ago that more than 50% of the population do not think for themselves but go along with either parochialistic thoughts they grew up with or are easily persuaded by those who talk loud.

I was rather skeptical, but unfortunately, that view is corresponded by the comments posted on the internet by Singaporeans in various blogs, forums and discussion boards.

One STOMP poster gave an account of how a Coffee Bean staff kept telling him "no studying here" despite the poster saying "I just want to drink coffee."  From the conversation reported in verbatim format, I could guess the staff is an ESN (Educationally Sub-Normal) and gave my comment, yet no one else who commented seemed to sense it or has any interest in how it could be so.

Which reminded me of how some years back TNP reported how jealous and demanding a girl was towards her boyfriend, going into details how she made him write promises of how to treat her.  Again, from the content of the promise letters, there were very strong indications that the couple involved were both ESN or mentally less developed, and it really turned out to be so!

Yet the reporter who must have met the couple first hand, and the editor who approved the story, didn't bother with these pertinent facts but ran the story front page in as juicy a manner possible.

Speaking of juicing up news, "Young & Unfazed" in ST 26 Oct reported of an NTU undergrad making callous responses to economic downturn.  So bizarre were the words attributed to the undergrad that I suspected either the interview subject was unreal, or the report was.  Sure enough, I made online contact with the undergrad who angrily denounced the reporter for misreporting all her words, including "wondering why her friend didn't ask parents for money".

And just last week, a neighbour from a higher floor dropped a towel which got caught in a branch above my balcony.  It was too high for me to help bring it down even standing on a ladder and using laundry pole, so I asked Mgt Office for help, explaining what happened. Eventually, they got a worker to bring it down but did not bother to notify us.  Noting the towel was gone, I checked on Saturday but was told since no one claimed it for 2 days, it was discarded.  I reminded them that I told them the unit it belonged to and I left contact numbers.  What infuriated me was the asst manager saying "we're not very clever people working here for miserable salaries".

Next time, I'll print out in exact details what I need them to do if I ever need them to do anything.  That's what I had to do some years back when the MO was contracted to another company, when some tree branches cracked and fell near the swing at the children's playground.  I had to inform the MO, after informing them the incident, that they cannot afford to wait for the scheduled landscaping in a couple of weeks time to prune the few branches overhanging the children's playarea.

I have been, I supposed, blessed that most of the people I interact with are quite capable of critical thinking.

Yet I do question if LKY or the VIP were actually correct in their assessment of the masses in general.  The scary thing is, I had always held the idea that LKY and VIP & co were the most isolated people who knew the least of what is in the minds of the masses and ordinary man on the street.

Thoughts from recent news ...

No time to blog, so just jotting down some thoughts from recent news ...

1. Financial fiasco, beginning with fall of Lehman.

Being an investment-dummy saved me from any financial loss this round, though there is a definite impact on me financially/economically as it does affect my company's business.

Mis-selling? Yes, I'm sure there're genuine cases.

Read of some who opposed compensation even in misselling 'cos each person must take full responsibility for what he does with his own money.

True only to a certain extent.  It is not realistic/practical for a person to go through all the fine prints.

 

2. Forum debate over what a Singaporean man wants and what a Singaporean woman wants, started by a certain Alvin Tan with his letter "Why I marry a China bride".

Tempted to say it's a total waste of time, but at least it affirms to me that nothing has changed for the last 30 years or so - men and women are still talking in different languages.

 

3. Transport study indicate buses run on time and not overcrowded.

My response: Though I drive to work, I have to say the study's conclusion is nonsense.

 

4. Young Singaporeans unfazed about economic downturn, citing an interview with a certain Agnes Lin.

My take: Interview report is most likely flawed.  The bizarre content made me question its integrity, and suspicion further raised when I read the blog of Agnes Lin.  ST needs more integrity.