What if a computer could generate a realistic image of your face using only your genetic information?
That's precisely the technology researchers at Human Longevity, a San-Diego based company with the world's largest genomic database, claim to have developed. The team, led by genome-sequencing pioneer Craig Venter, reported their findings in a controversial paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To train the A.I. to generate facial images, the team first sequenced the genomes of 1,061 people of various ages and ethnicity. They also took high-definition 3D photos of each participant. Finally, they fed the photos and genetic information to an algorithm that taught itself how small differences in DNA relate to facial features, like cheekbone height or protrusion of the brow. The algorithm was then given genomes it hadn't seen before, and it used them to generate images of the individual's face that could be reliably matched to real photos.
Well... sort of.
The team successfully matched eight out of ten images to the real photos. However, this rate fell to just five out of ten when researchers analyzed participants of only one race, considering facial features differ slightly by race. Judge for yourself how well the algorithm did:
The potential applications of this technology are especially intriguing for fields like forensic science — what if investigators were able to use genetic information left at a crime scene to “see” the perpetrator?
Interesting as the applications may be, Human Longevity is more concerned with the implications its findings has on privacy in genomics research, namely that technologies like this could be used to match people's thought-to-be anonymous genetic information to their online photos.
“A core belief from the HLI researchers is that there is now no such thing as true deidentification and full privacy in publicly accessible databases,” HLI said in a statement.
Overblown claims?
Privacy concerns seem to be widely shared in the community. But some scientists say that the paper is misleading. One reason is that the Human Longevity researchers already knew the age, sex and race of the participants — demographic information that could have been used to achieve the same matching rate without using the computer-generated photos at all.
“I don't think this paper raises those risks, because they haven’t demonstrated any ability to individuate this person from DNA,” said Mark Shriver, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, in an interview with Nature.
Jason Piper, a former employee of Human Longevity, took issue with what he considered a lack of accuracy in the images, writing on Twitter that:
“everyone looks close to the average of their race, everyone looks like their prediction.”
But perhaps the most exhaustive criticism came from computational biologist Yaniv Erlich, who published a paper entitled Major flaws in "Identification of individuals by trait prediction using whole-genome sequencing data, part of which reads:
“The results of the authors are unremarkable. I achieved a similar re-identification accuracy with the Venter cohort in 10 minutes of work without fancy face morphology...”
Just days later, the team behind the original paper issued a rebuttal, titled simply No major flaws in "Identification of individuals by trait prediction using whole-genome sequencing data.
(It may seem mundane to those outside the field, but it's a pretty vicious beef in the scientific community at the moment, as seen by the "shots fired!" and "I'm gonna grab my popcorn..." comments under both papers.)
Access to genomics data
Underlying this whole debate is a question of access. Genomic data is used across various fields of study, but perhaps most importantly in research that seeks to combat diseases. In an interview with Nature, Piper said that Human Longevity has a vested interest in restricting access to DNA databases because it's a for-profit company that's trying to build the largest genome database in the world.
“I think genetic privacy is very important, but the approach being taken is the wrong one,” Piper said. “In order to get more information out of the genome, people have to share.”
Rather than privatizing and restricting access to genomic data, Piper said that a better solution would be to make data public while using techniques that still allow individuals to remain anonymous.
Ash deposits of some of North America's largest volcanic eruptions.
The end of the world as we know it
Panoramic view of Yellowstone National Park
Image: Heinrich Berann for the National Park Service – public domain
Of the many freak ways to shuffle off this mortal coil – lightning strikes, shark bites, falling pianos – here's one you can safely scratch off your worry list: an outbreak of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
As the map below shows, previous eruptions at Yellowstone were so massive that the ash fall covered most of what is now the western United States. A similar event today would not only claim countless lives directly, but also create enough subsidiary disruption to kill off global civilisation as we know it. A relatively recent eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia may have come close to killing off the human species (see further below).
However, just because a scenario is grim does not mean that it is likely (insert topical political joke here). In this case, the doom mongers claiming an eruption is 'overdue' are wrong. Yellowstone is not a library book or an oil change. Just because the previous mega-eruption happened long ago doesn't mean the next one is imminent.
Ash beds of North America
Ash beds deposited by major volcanic eruptions in North America.
Image: USGS – public domain
This map shows the location of the Yellowstone plateau and the ash beds deposited by its three most recent major outbreaks, plus two other eruptions – one similarly massive, the other the most recent one in North America.
Huckleberry Ridge
The Huckleberry Ridge eruption occurred 2.1 million years ago. It ejected 2,450 km3 (588 cubic miles) of material, making it the largest known eruption in Yellowstone's history and in fact the largest eruption in North America in the past few million years.
This is the oldest of the three most recent caldera-forming eruptions of the Yellowstone hotspot. It created the Island Park Caldera, which lies partially in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming and westward into Idaho. Ash from this eruption covered an area from southern California to North Dakota, and southern Idaho to northern Texas.
Mesa Falls
About 1.3 million years ago, the Mesa Falls eruption ejected 280 km3 (67 cubic miles) of material and created the Henry's Fork Caldera, located in Idaho, west of Yellowstone.
It was the smallest of the three major Yellowstone eruptions, both in terms of material ejected and area covered: 'only' most of present-day Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, and about half of South Dakota.
Lava Creek
The Lava Creek eruption was the most recent major eruption of Yellowstone: about 640,000 years ago. It was the second-largest eruption in North America in the past few million years, creating the Yellowstone Caldera.
It ejected only about 1,000 km3 (240 cubic miles) of material, i.e. less than half of the Huckleberry Ridge eruption. However, its debris is spread out over a significantly wider area: basically, Huckleberry Ridge plus larger slices of both Canada and Mexico, plus most of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri.
Long Valley
This eruption occurred about 760,000 years ago. It was centered on southern California, where it created the Long Valley Caldera, and spewed out 580 km3 (139 cubic miles) of material. This makes it North America's third-largest eruption of the past few million years.
The material ejected by this eruption is known as the Bishop ash bed, and covers the central and western parts of the Lava Creek ash bed.
Mount St Helens
The eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in U.S. history: it created a mile-wide crater, killed 57 people and created economic damage in the neighborhood of $1 billion.
Yet by Yellowstone standards, it was tiny: Mount St Helens only ejected 0.25 km3 (0.06 cubic miles) of material, most of the ash settling in a relatively narrow band across Washington State and Idaho. By comparison, the Lava Creek eruption left a large swathe of North America in up to two metres of debris.
The difference between quakes and faults
The volume of dense rock equivalent (DRE) ejected by the Huckleberry Ridge event dwarfs all other North American eruptions. It is itself overshadowed by the DRE ejected at the most recent eruption at Toba (present-day Indonesia). This was one of the largest known eruptions ever and a relatively recent one: only 75,000 years ago. It is thought to have caused a global volcanic winter which lasted up to a decade and may be responsible for the bottleneck in human evolution: around that time, the total human population suddenly and drastically plummeted to between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs.
Image: USGS – public domain
So, what are the chances of something that massive happening anytime soon? The aforementioned mongers of doom often claim that major eruptions occur at intervals of 600,000 years and point out that the last one was 640,000 years ago. Except that (a) the first interval was about 200,000 years longer, (b) two intervals is not a lot to base a prediction on, and (c) those intervals don't really mean anything anyway. Not in the case of volcanic eruptions, at least.
Earthquakes can be 'overdue' because the stress on fault lines is built up consistently over long periods, which means quakes can be predicted with a relative degree of accuracy. But this is not how volcanoes behave. They do not accumulate magma at constant rates. And the subterranean pressure that causes the magma to erupt does not follow a schedule.
What's more, previous super-eruptions do not necessarily imply future ones. Scientists are not convinced that there ever will be another big eruption at Yellowstone. Smaller eruptions, however, are much likelier. Since the Lava Creek eruption, there have been about 30 smaller outbreaks at Yellowstone, the last lava flow being about 70,000 years ago.
As for the immediate future (give or take a century): the magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is only 5 percent to 15 percent molten. Most scientists agree that is as un-alarming as it sounds. And that its statistically more relevant to worry about death by lightning, shark, or piano.
Strange Maps #1041
Got a strange map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.
