Leech Convicts Australian Robber
Police found a leech at the scene of a robbery in Tasmania eight years ago. They took a sample of the blood the leech had consumed. In 2008, Peter Alec Cannon was arrested on an unrelated drug charge. The DNA from his blood matched the blood from the leech!
Cannon would probably have got away with the crime had he not been charged with drug offences late last year, and asked to give a DNA sample – which matched that from the crime scene.
Detective Inspector Mick Johnston, who was involved in the police investigation from the start, said Cannon’s conviction validated the use of DNA technology.
“It’s a testament to DNA evidence and the legislation that allows us to keep such evidence in relation to unsolved crimes – this is a fantastic result,” he said.
Link -via Boing Boing
(image credit: BBC)
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Could You Decipher the Arecibo Message?
On August 20, 1974, scientists at Cornell University and the National Science Foundation used the radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico to beam a message into space. Encoded within the binary digits of the message was information related to the Solar System, our number system, basic chemistry, and human DNA.
1679 digits were used for the message on the presumption that “any sentient being” would recognize the number as the product of two prime numbers (23 and 73), allowing the digits to be then rearranged from a linear binary stream into a graphic format (depicted at left, enhanced with color for clarity).
The message has been traveling through space for 25 years and is not due to arrive at its destination for another 24,975 years. Curiously, however, a reply was received in 2001, in the form of a crop circle near the Chilbolton radio telescope, in Hampshire, UK. The “return message” inserts the element silicon into the vital chemical elements of life, and incorporates an extra strand in the DNA double helix. The size of the creature depicted in the reply is approximately 3′4″, consistent with earthly reports of extraterrestrial visitations.
Those who need help to work their way through the information in the original message will find guidance at the University of Utah’s Physics and Astronomy Department, or at Wikipedia. More information re the reply and its implications at Crop Circle Research dotcom.
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Where Did All the Flowers Come From?
Charles Darwin was a lifelong fan of flowers, but was unable to figure out how they evolved. There were fossils of flowering plants going back 66-100 million years, which didn’t help much because flowers evolved much earlier. Recently, however, scientists are turning to DNA analysis of contemporary plants to decode where they came from. They are also finding older fossils than ever before, as far back as 136 million years ago. Paleobotanist James A. Doyle says the fossil record is the only thing that will bring together the many theories of flower evolution.
If you could travel back to 130 million years ago, you might not be impressed with the earliest flowers. “They didn’t look like they were going anywhere,” Dr. Doyle said.
Those early flowers were small and rare, living in the shadows of far more successful nonflowering plants. It took many millions of years for flowers to hit their stride. Around 120 million years ago, a new branch of flowers evolved that came to dominate many forests and explode in diversity. That lineage includes 99 percent of all species of flowering plants on Earth today, ranging from magnolias to dandelions to pumpkins. That explosion in diversity also produced the burst of flower fossils that so puzzled Darwin.
Genetic research is providing answers to how plants can switch on genes that control how different plants parts grow, and to use sexual reproduction to increase genetic diversity. Link
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Portraits From Your DNA
Image: DNA Art Forms
Lauren Davis of io9 describes four companies that make a portrait of you, right down to the profile of your DNA. Above is a portrait of a woman named Catherine from DNA Art Forms. It all started with a cheek swab:
After identifying 15 unique regions of your genetic code, clients consult with an artist as to how they want their DNA represented, be it as an abstract form, a landscape, or as an actual portrait including your image. Portraits start at $1500, and clients are consulted each step of the way, approving concept sketches before paint ever touches canvas.
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Thief Identified Through His Turd
This has got to be one of the strangest police investigations ever. Detectives in Valencia County, New Mexico, identified a possible suspect by extracting DNA from a very unusual piece of evidence left by the thief: his own turd!
The thief used the bathroom and left his solid waste on display for the homeowner. "It’s more of an insult right there. It was a big slap in the face," the homeowner said.
That same type of evidence was found at several different burglary scenes. The detectives on the case said they used the thief’s calling card against him. The feces went into evidence and the state crime lab extracted DNA from it. "We ended up getting a hit," Rivera said.
Good work, CSI Valencia County! Link – via Dave Barry’s Blog
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Breakthrough Means Artificial Life Could Be Here "Within Months"
Another step in the quest to create life has been made, as scientists successfully transformed one bacteria into another by replacing it’s DNA with a related species’. Now, scientists are setting their sights on creating entirely new microbes with unique genome sequences, from scratch.
Dr Venter likened it to “changing a Macintosh computer into a PC by inserting a new piece of software” and stressed it would be more difficult in other kinds of cells, which have enzymes to snip the DNA of invaders.
But he said to achieve the feat, without adding anything more than naked DNA, “is a huge enabling step.”
“It’s a necessary step toward creating artificial life,” added microbiologist Fred Blattner of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Dr Venter said that, in the light of this success, the culmination of a decade’s work, he will be attempting the first transplant of a lab-made genome to create the first artificial life “within months.”
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Scientists Create Fake DNA
A laboratory at Nucleix, a life-sciences company, was able to manufacture DNA that would be accurate enough to pass forensic scrutiny:
“You can just engineer a crime scene,” Nucleix founder Dan Frumkin told The New York Times. “The current forensic procedure fails to distinguish between such samples of blood, saliva, and touched surfaces with artificial DNA, and corresponding samples with in vivo generated (natural) DNA,” Frumkin and co-authors wrote in a recent Forensic Science International: Genetics study that announced the technological achievement.
Fortunately, the company offers a solution: one particular methyl group appears in naturally-occuring DNA, but not in Nucleix’s product.
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VideoSift Clips of the Week
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Mitchell and Webb Take on Gordon Ramsay
This is a hilarious skit that sends up the foul-mouthed kitchen coach. (language NSFW) |
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How DNA Copies Itself
From the PBS program “DNA The Secret of Life”. |
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Richard Dawkins: Why are there still chimpanzees?
Richard Dawkins clears up the misunderstanding of Evolution that is all too common: If we descended from Chimpanzees, then why are there still Chimpanzees? |
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Uncanny Drew Carey Look-Alike on The Price is Right
He is the spittin’ image of Drew- but then so is every high school woodshop teacher in the US. |
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Cutting Edge Prosthetic Arms
Motorized prosthetic arms are now being matched to nerve endings beneath the skin – it seems we’re just a few steps away from Luke Skywalker’s robo-hand. |
For more the web’s most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.
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DNA is DNA is DNA, Right?
At one point in time in my graduate studies, I stopped being surprised at weird biological discoveries because, as one of my college professors said, when it comes to science, "there’s an exception to every rule, including this one" (think about it for a minute).
But this discovery by Morris Schweitzer and colleagues at McGill University and Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital revealed something that is mind boggling: your DNA may not be the same in different cells in your body:
Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell.
Except for cancer, samples of diseased tissue are difficult or even impossible to take from living patients. Thus, the vast majority of genetic samples used in large-scale studies come in the form of blood. However, if it turns out that blood and tissue cells do not match genetically, these ambitious and expensive genome-wide association studies may prove to have been essentially flawed from the outset.
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Molecular Visualization of DNA
Here is an amazing CGI visualization of DNA coiling, replication, transcription and translation in real time as is occurring every second in our bodies. For me the most fascinating aspect of watching this is the realization of how the production of DNA in our cells is so industrious. It’s like watching a souped miniature assembly line working non stop! Created by by Drew Berry of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.
via – io9
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Do-it-yourself DNA Analysis
Five-year-old Beatrice Rienhoff suffers from a rare genetic disorder that leaves her with very little muscle mass and a range of medical problems. Doctors don’t know exactly what’s wrong, nor how to help her.
Families facing this kind of medical uncertainty are often paralyzed by their distress. But rather than give in to his anguish, Hugh Rienhoff made an extraordinary decision: He would dig into Beatrice’s genetic code and find the answer himself. A biotechnology consultant by day, Rienhoff has been an avid student of clinical genetics since he earned his medical degree nearly 30 years ago. Now he has used this expertise to transform his Bay Area home into a makeshift genetics lab. Surrounded by his children’s artwork and bookshelves loaded with his wife’s political literature, Rienhoff set about sequencing a number of Beatrice’s genes, preparing samples using secondhand equipment and turning to public databases to interpret the results. On the desk in his attic workspace are a pair of white binders stuffed with charts detailing 20,000 of Beatrice’s base pairs; the data for nearly 1 billion can be accessed from a nearby PC. Whenever he has a spare moment, Rienhoff sequesters himself in this cluttered, carpeted room and sifts through his daughter’s DNA, one nucleotide at a time. He is hunting for the single genetic quirk responsible for Beatrice’s woes—an adenine in place of a guanine, perhaps, or an extra cytosine in a key location. If he can find the culprit, he figures, maybe he can find a treatment, too.
Reinhoff’s research hasn’t cracked the mystery yet, but he has found a treatment that helps his daughter somewhat. Along the way, he also became an advocate for other parents who are looking for answers to their children’s baffling conditions. Link
(image credit: Ye Rin Mok)
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The Kincaid DNA Project Reveals Ethical Dilemma of Paternity Test
In the Clan Kincaid DNA Project, 140 people with the surname Kincaid (or variations thereof) have taken DNA test to find their ancestors and trace their family tree.
But among the cool stuff (like finding out war heroes and survivors of the Irish potato famine as their ancestors), they’ve also opened the Pandora box of lies and secrets:
They have also stumbled upon bastards, liars and two-timers.
Much of it is ancient history, long-dead ancestors whose dalliances are part of the intrigue of amateur genealogy. But sometimes the findings strike closer to home.
In one case, two brothers were surprised to discover they had different fathers. They confronted their elderly mother, who denied the most obvious possibilities — that she had been unfaithful to her husband, the man they had always known as Dad, or that one son was adopted.
"It has been traumatic for some to discover their true lineage through the DNA tests," said Don Kincaid, a 76-year-old Texan who oversees the Kincaid surname project and witnessed the brothers’ ordeal.
As genetic testing becomes more widespread for medical information, forensics and ancestral research, more people are accidentally uncovering family secrets. Among the most painful are so-called "non-paternity events," cases in which Dad turns out to be someone else.
Alan Zarembo of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link
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Blood from Mosquito Linked to Crime Suspect
A car stolen from Lapua, Finland was examined for evidence that might lead to the identity of the thief. A mosquito found inside was send to the lab and the human blood inside the insect had DNA that matched a man whose DNA was on file!
Finnish police said it was rare for them to use insects to solve crimes, although they are interested in everything found at a crime scene.
“It is not usual to use mosquitoes. In training we were not told to keep an eye on mosquitoes at crime scenes,” Palomaeki said, laughing.
“It is not easy to find a small mosquito in a car, this just shows how thorough the crime scene investigation was,” he added.
The suspect has been questioned and insists that he rode in the car when he was picked up hitchhiking, but did not steal the car. Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!
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