12 | New Scientist | 2 November 2019
Animal cognitionAdam Vaughan Alice KleinRATS have mastered the art
of driving a tiny car and they find it
relaxing. This suggests their brains
are more flexible than we thought.
We know that rodents can learn
to recognise objects, press bars and
find their way around mazes. Tests
of these abilities are used to study
how some medical conditions affect
cognitive function, but they capture
only a narrow window of animal
cognition, says Kelly Lambert at the
University of Richmond in Virginia.
To see if rats could learn a more
sophisticated task, Lambert and her
colleagues constructed a car from
a clear plastic food container, giving
it wheels and an aluminium floor.
Three copper bars steered the car.
When a rat stood on the aluminium
and gripped the bars with its paws,
it completed an electrical circuit that
propelled the car forward. Touching
the left, centre or right bar steered
the car in different directions.
Six female and 11 male rats
were trained to drive the car in a
4-square-metre arena. They were
rewarded with food when they
touched the bars and drove the car.The team encouraged the rats
to advance their driving skills by
placing food at increasingly distant
points (Behavioural Brain Research,
doi.org/dc7f). “They learned to
navigate the car in unique ways and
engaged in steering patterns they
had never used to eventually arrive
at the reward,” says Lambert.
Measuring levels of hormones
related to stress before and after
training revealed that driving
seemed to relax the rats. ❚Scientists train
rats to drive tiny cars
around an arenaTHE genetic information of
millions of people whose DNA
is held in genetic genealogy
databases could be revealed
by phishing attacks that exploit
how the websites work.
Michael Edge and Graham
Coop at the University of
California, Davis, have described
three methods by which DNA
data could be compromised.
They have serious concerns
about the genetic privacy of
the more than 5 million users
of genetic genealogy services
including MyHeritage,
GEDmatch, FamilyTreeDNA,
LivingDNA and DNA.Land.
However, the firms that
spoke to New Scientist reject
the suggestion that genetic
privacy is at risk.
These database sites allow
people who have had their DNA
tested by companies such as
23andMe to upload their genetic
data to help them find family
members. If portions of their
DNA have a strong match with
others on the website, they can
see a name or email address
to contact them.
By manipulating this process,
it could be used to reveal most
of the genetic data of most
people, say Edge and Coop. “It
depends on the method and on
the database, but is potentially
quite a lot of [genetic]
information,” says Edge.
Edge and Coop warned the
companies of vulnerabilities
and suggested fixes 90 days
before publishing a paper
on the methods. They tested
the techniques on 872 publicly
available genomes, but
they didn’t use them on
any of the databases.
One attack involved
uploading many real genetic
data sets and monitoring for
partial matches with shortstretches of people’s genomes
in the database. A twist on that
approach was uploading genetic
data that is largely fake, apart
from a genuine segment
targeting a match for specific
genetic variants linked to
greater risk of certain
conditions, such as Alzheimer’s.
A third way involved trying
to trick algorithms by using
completely faked data designed
to match the genetics of mostpeople in the databases
(bioRxiv, doi.org/dc9b).
The techniques could return
significant genetic data, with
the most effective method able
to get hold of about 60 per cent
of an average person’s total
alleles – their variants of a
gene. None of the techniques
are very complex, the pair say.
Attackers could end up
with a list of names and
email addresses associatedwith a large amount of unique
genetic data, revealing much
about the individuals’ ancestry
and allowing predictions
about genetic traits for certain
conditions.
Bradley Malin at Vanderbilt
University in Tennessee says
that even if people harvested
only small amounts of data,
compared with an entire
genome, that could be of
interest.
Christi Guerrini at Baylor
College of Medicine in Texas
says that although the risks
concern her, they need to be
put in the context of other
vulnerabilities, such as health
information including genetic
data being hacked.
All of the companies in this
story told New Scientist that
they have measures in place
to guard against such attacks,
except for DNA.land, which did
not respond to a request for
comment before publication. ❚Data securityGenetic privacy attack
Exploiting how genealogy websites work could reveal DNA data
TERRY WALLER/ALAMY STOCK PHOTONews
Many people use
genealogy sites to dig
into their family history60%
of a person’s gene variants
could be identifiedRats seem to
find driving
relaxing,
perhaps because
they don’t have
to commuteKELLY LAMBERT/UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND