In a post on its newly opened blog, Too, Sergey Brin, one of the two co-founders of Google, has decided to speak about a sensitive issue: he carries a specific gene mutation that increases his likelihood of contracting Parkinson’s disease.

Sergey Brin has discovered through 23andMe, the genetics testing start-up co-founded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, that he carries a particular mutation of the LRRK2, the gene responsible for Parkinson’s. The mutation, known as G2019S, is rare even among people with the disease, but in some ethnic groups, accounts for a substantial proportion of familial Parkinson's.

Based on these findings, Sergey Brin said that he has higher chance of developing Parkinson's in his lifetime than the average person.

“In fact, it is somewhere between 20% to 80% depending on the study and how you measure,” he wrote.

Brin’s mother, who already has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, carries the same genetic mutation.

Read more: efluxmedia.com 

Labels: Blogger, blogging, blogs, Blogspot, Parkinson’s, Sergey Brin

Google co-founder Sergei Brin has put down $5 million toward a flight to the international space station with the company that has sent millionaires and even a billionaire into orbit.

Virginia-based Space Adventures announced the identity of the future space traveler as well as its vision for the next decade of space tourism at a New York news conference today.

As part of the deal, Brin made a $5 million investment in Space Adventures, which would secure him a spot on the future Russian Soyuz flight to the station. The price tag for such a trip has run from $20 million (or less) to $35 million (or more). Thus, if Brin goes through with the purchase, he'll be paying millions more in the years to come.

Full article: msnbc.msn.com 

Labels: Sergey Brin, Soyuz, space

Google executives convened an emergency meeting last night to discuss the implications of a possible revived deal between Yahoo! and Microsoft.

The pair are understood to be negotiating a deal concerning the control of advertisements that are displayed next to internet search results, a market that is dominated by Google. The joint venture could be sealed in the next few days.

Speaking at the Google Zeitgeist conference in Hertfordshire, hosted by the internet company’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, the chief executive, said: “After this press conference the three of us will meet and decide what our response is.”

The three companies are fighting over online advertising, which is thought to be worth about $40 billion a year and is expected to double by 2010.

Read more: timesonline.co.uk 

Labels: Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, microsoft, Sergey Brin, Yahoo

SO JERRY YANG is no longer just the chief Yahoo, whatever that means. Terry Semel has vacated Yahoo's CEO office and Jerry Yang has set up shop there. At the same time, Sue Decker has stepped into the president's role. While Terry Semel's departure didn't come as a great surprise to anyone in the search space, Jerry Yang's appointment as CEO did raise a few eyebrows. In retrospect, the move seems to make a lot of sense but in the numerous conversations I've had on this topic in the last few weeks, no one mentioned Yang's name as Yahoo's possible savior. With this move will come the inevitable speculation about how this will bolster Yahoo's chances of competing against Google. Just last week I was interviewed by Bloomberg TV and was asked about that very topic. At that time I mentioned that the biggest difference between the two was the lack of corporate focus at Yahoo and the fact that focus, at least on the search side, has never been an issue for Google.

Full article: mediapost.com 

Labels: Jerry Yang, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Yahoo

Google’s ‘RechargeIT’ initiative transforms hybrid cars into mostly electrically powered vehicles that barely use the fuel tank to double the fuel economy of regular hybrids, pump energy back into the grid and reduce emissions while providing US $10m to speed up progress.

With Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, already an investor in Silicon Valley’s ‘Tesla Motors’ electric car company, along with Google’s recent moves to work on energy efficient technology with Intel, Google is positioning itself to make as big a difference to the world of renewable energies as it has in search and online advertising.

Full article: ITWire.com.au/ 

Labels: electric, power, Sergey Brin, solar, Tesla

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has bestowed quite a wedding gift to company co-founder Sergey Brin and his new wife. The company has taken a $3.9 million minority stake in 23andMe, which is described as an early stage biotech company that just happens to have been co-founded by Brin's new wife, Anne Wojcicki. (I wish I hadn't edited out my planned joke in last week's wedding take, wondering about the possibility for some biotech search product. Ah, the missed opportunities!)

Full story: fool.com 

Labels: 23andMe, biotech, Sergey Brin

Google co-founder Sergey Brin and long-time sweetheart Anne Wojcicki, herself a biotech entrepreneur, exchanged vows recently in the Bahamas, according to several sources, in an ceremony so hush-hush that it wasn't reported for more than a week, and even the date is uncertain (sometime between May 4 and May 6).

The ceremony combined the unconventional and traditional. The bride and groom and other members of the wedding party wore swimsuits, having swum to an offshore sandbar while other guests took a boat. About 60 guests were in attendance, said guests at the ceremony who requested anonymity.

Full article: MercuryNews.com 

Labels: ceremony, co-founder, hitched, Sergey Brin, wedding