With the rise in consumer DNA tests and online genealogy, people might soon have a pretty good idea where their families came from for generations.

But are we putting too much faith in DNA? Can our genetic ancestry really tell us anything about ourselves? And what happens when DNA databases become playgrounds for true crime sleuths?

Guests:

• Carl Zimmer, science journalist and author of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity
• Kristen V. Brown, biotechnology reporter at Bloomberg
• Kim Tallbear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science
• Clan_McCrimmon, moderator of the Lyle Stevik subreddit
• Colleen Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press, cofounders of DNA Doe
• Kelly Hills, cofounder of Rogue Bioethics

Further Reading:

• She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity
• Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science
• The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants
• In an Age of Gene Editing and Surrogacy, What Does Heredity Mean?
  
• How DNA Testing Botched My Family’s Heritage, and Probably Yours, Too
  
• DNA testing is like the ‘Wild West’; should it be more tightly regulated?
  
• DNA test kits: Consider the privacy implications
  
• The ingenious and ‘dystopian’ DNA technique police used to hunt the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect
  
• The Strange Case of the Man With No Name
  
• Web Sleuths: Lyle Stevik
  
• Reddit: Lyle Stevik
  
• GED Match
  
• Active DNA Doe Cases
• DNA Doe Lyle Stevik Press Release 

Flash Forward is a critically acclaimed podcast about the future.

In each episode, host Rose Eveleth takes on a possible (or not so possible) future scenario — everything from the existence of artificial wombs, to what would happen if space pirates dragged a second moon to Earth. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a black market for fecal transplants? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) By combining audio drama and deep reporting, Flash Forward gives listeners an original and unique window into the future, how likely different scenarios might be, and how to prepare for what might come.