'The time has come' , the Walrus said,
'To speak of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
Of cabbages and kings'

A 21^st century Walrus might add as he talked to the oysters:

'And why our genes may work or not,
Or why our hair is red
Will our kith and kin stay well
Or is it better left unsaid'

Journalists work hard to get people to to tell  their stories and for much of my career I found the ways and mean to pass on those stories. Now that I work in the PR field I find myself once again telling stories. This time ones about the drivers and people behind the genomics revolution.
Not that many years ago there were relatively few media outlets to get stories and news to people. Now with Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other similar tools, people can share by simply spending a few minutes at a keyboard.
But it still amazes me how people will speak of so many things. 

I've posted my 23andMe and deCODE genome sequences and once the results are in, my Navigenics information will be available to the world as well. As a registered user on 23andMe my genome is shared and compared with several other users. One of those is Jen McCabe and we have a 74.40 % similarity. High enough yo be interesting but not high enough to warrant climbing through the branches of our respective family trees. Jen is one of may non-scientists sharing their stories, advocating for a new world of personal medicine, and putting themselves out there to help people understand what they believe is going to be a key part in the health care system of the future.
She first used Twitter to coin 'meome' in reference to her own genome. When she got her test results from 23andMe she set up a camcorder, taped her initial reaction to first learning about her meome, and put it up on Posterous.com

A quick look at SNPedia's posted genomes will give you the chance to download more genetic codes than you'll be able to decipher in a lifetime. Notable among those is the entire genome of leading geneticists and you can have a crack at the 'Experimental Man' who is one of the most annotated people in the world.
Why do some people share what is arguably the most personal of information. ( Ff experimental psychologist Steven Pinker's decision to post his genome, comedian talk show host Stephen Colbert said "that's like posting the social security number God gave you " The full interview is available at http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report- videos/218577/february-11-2009/steven-pinker  but unfortunately not to Canadians. We have to go to Comedy Central and it is a lost cause )

To understand the why's start by looking around the room at friends or even total strangers. Look in the mirror. Give the family dog a pat on the head. People are 99% similar at the genetic level and we share incredible numbers of genes with other species yet we all look different. We age differently, some die young, some live long and prosper. Some people are gifted athletes, some seem to be born mathematicians while some of us see math as a black art.
Maybe we share such deep information because we want to understand and appreciate exactly why we are different and quite publicly assert our individuality in a way few people can claim.
Maybe it is a sense of our own mortality that drives people to find out whether they are predisposed to certain diseases then share that information with people in the same boat.
It could simply be a gut-based sense of curiosity to look deep inside to see what is there.
I did it because I still hold that journalist's desire to tell stories and because as a Communications Director for a genomics organization it seemed to be an ideal path to take. Once I had posted the information though something a little more personal came into play and I joined the ranks of those who just plain want to know what is going on inside us.
I also never saw a risk to posting my genome and in the same Colbert Report referenced earlier in this post nor did Steven Pinker. As part of the Personal Genome Project his genome and medical information is available at www.personalgenomes.org/public/6.html

Then this information appeared this week:
DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

The technique they used is not quite the same as recreating it from a data file .... but then .....