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Your Genetic Privacy Is Probably a Lost Cause

by Rose Eveleth Feb 7, 2014 2 minutes

Any cup you sip from could provide a sample bearing your DNA. dohtoor via Shutterstock

Almost everywhere you go, you leave a bit of yourself behind—a hair, a fingernail clipping, a bit of skin, a few skin cells from your lips on a drinking cup. For a long time, that trace of you was little different from any other refuse—useless waste swept up into a garbage can, where it belonged. But as DNA technology gets better, that left-behind piece

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