国家地理 你的医疗未来(1)（在线收听）

I would never have met Harriett were it not for our mutual friend, Linda. I'm a physician in Northern California; Harriett's a communications executive in New York City. Linda co-founded an online personal genomics company, to which Harriett and I each sent our genetic information for analysis.

若不是因为我们的共同朋友琳达，我永远不会认识哈里特。我是北加州的医师，而哈里特是纽约市一家通信公司的主管。琳达与友人合资创办了一家在线个人基因组公司，哈里特和我分别把自己的遗传信息寄给这家公司分析。

Linda introduced us after she saw that Harriett and I had something in common: a rare type of mitochondrial DNA, which meant we were distantly related. It turns out that we also share that genealogy with a prehistoric celebrity: ?tzi the Iceman, whose 5,300-year-old frozen corpse was discovered in the Alps in 1991. For fun, I even started a Facebook group for people with the same DNA variant as ?tzi and Harriett and me.

我们是经琳达介绍才认识的，因为琳达发现哈里特和我有个共通点：一种罕见的粒线体DNA，这表示我们是远亲。结果表明，我们还与一位史前名人--奥兹冰人--有着相同的系谱。1991年，人们在阿尔卑斯山发现了这一冰封了5300年的尸体。为了好玩，我甚至为跟我和哈里特拥有相同DNA变异的人成立了脸书社团。

I tell this story to make a point. Harriett and I met over a feat of biomedical science -- mass-market, low-cost gene analysis -- that once was unimaginable and now is commonplace. The convergence of digital technologies and social platforms made it possible for us to learn our genotypes and share what we found out with the online universe.

我讲这个故事是为了说明一个观点。哈里特和我会相识，是因为生物医学的一项成就--针对大众市场的低成本基因检测。这样的基因检测在过去是难以想象的，现在却不足为奇。数字科技与社交平台的融合，让我们有可能知道自己的基因型，并且与网络世界分享我们的发现。