THE residents of Norfolk Island, most of whom are descended from the sailors
who seized the British ship Bounty in 1789 and set up home in the South Pacific,
may soon repay some of the debt to society left by their mutinous ancestors. The
DNA of this uniquely isolated community may help researchers find the genes
which predispose people to cardiovascular disease.
A team of Australian geneticists is currently collecting DNA samples from the
islanders. For the past three months, Lyn Griffiths, director of the genomics
research centre at Griffith University in Queensland, has been on Norfolk with
two fellow…
