Front and Back Covers, Volume 34, Number 6. December 2018

Front and back cover caption, volume 34 issue 6 Front cover EARTHRISE ‘Earthrise’ involves learning to see all at once. In 1948, astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle predicted that ‘Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from outside, is available … a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose’. Fifty years ago, on Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders took ‘arguably the most iconic photograph of the 20th century’ ‐ first witnessed as the earth appeared sideways from behind the moon's vertical horizon. Notwithstanding the 50th anniversary also being marked by reports that global wildlife populations have decreased by 60 per cent since 1970, ‘earthrise’ has been called ‘the most influential environmental photograph ever taken’ and quickly influenced the infant ecological movement. On Earth Day 1970, anthropologist Margaret Mead said ‘I think that the tenderness that lies in seeing the earth as small and lonely and blue is probably one of the most valuable things that we have now’. Apollo 8's moments of eye witness ‐ including the famous Christmas Eve broadcast which closed with words from the Book of Genesis ‐ played a part in ending the world as it was once known and in creating a world whose endings have become vividly apprehendable anew. But, as geographer Denis Cosgrove describes, the ‘meanings of the photographed earth were anticipated long before the photographs themselves were taken … for all its radical newness, actually witnessing the globe culminates a long genealogy of imagining and reflecting upon the possibility of doing so’. Historian Robert Poole suggests that the ‘earthrise’ photograph has ‘given the world a picture to think with’. As a new way of seeing and knowing, the particularities of thought and cultural history elicited by ‘earthrise’ imagery no doubt have important real‐world consequences ‐ and provide the anthropological telling point of Tony Crook's reflections on Earthrise +50 in this issue. Back cover WHAT DNA CAN'T TELL Since the 1980s, DNA analysis has been a key source of new knowledge about the origins of humankind. Studies of ‘ancestry informative’ regions of the genome, collected from living populations around the globe, have been used to reconstruct the trajectories of the earliest human migrations. As researchers have delved further into these population histories, their findings have demonstrated that mixture and migration have been constant and universal aspects of the human experience. Recently, however, the notion of DNA as a privileged window into human migrations has come full circle with the news that commercial genetic ancestry tests are being used in countries like Canada to verify the nationality of detained migrants scheduled for deportation. DNA ancestry testing is currently a booming global business, with over 16 million tests processed worldwide to date. Using high‐resolution genotyping analyses, companies estimate users' ‘ethnic’ origins and generate lists of ‘genetic relatives’ based on their shared DNA. Many present their products as offering profound insights into questions of personal origins and family ties. In this new development, state law enforcement agencies are taking advantage of growing commercial genetic databases and vast international genealogical networks to dispute the claimed identities of individuals in irregular migration cases. In her discussion of these practices, Sarah Abel asks: is genetics a useful tool for determining an individual's nationality? What ethical issues does this raise? And how can the misuse of these technologies be prevented? The image shown here is a detail from Micro chroma: From gonad to nomad by Kate Grant (Instagram @katewatercolours). The artwork, painted using resin with alkyd oil, depicts a human genetic migration map overlaid with developing sperm and ovarian follicles. It was commissioned by the CitiGen project, a HERA joint research programme that studies how the use of genomic data is informing public understandings of the past.