Monthly Archives: June 2021

By Scott Meacham| Oklahoman

Of the nearly 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, about 99% are the same in every human being however, it is the sequence of these DNA pairs that makes each of us who we are genetically.

Its like that with entrepreneurial DNA every state has it.

Our country was built by entrepreneurs. Its just that from state to state, our DNA is sequenced differently.

In Oklahoma, our entrepreneurial DNA isnt channeled from one dominant industry or from a particular type of entrepreneur. Our state heroes of innovation have impacted industries across the board from human flight to rock and roll. From changing the way that people drive to changing the way the way people exercise. From making it easier to shop to making it easier to park. From digging ditches to accessing the Internet.

Wiley Post, the aviator with the vision of moving people and freight faster over greater distances, envisioned space travel and, in 1934, invented the pressure suit and advanced innovation in airplane design and fuel forever linking our state to the moon and Mars.

While Wiley Post was pushing the limitations of flight, Oklahoma musician and electric guitar pioneer Bob Dunn was doing some soaring of his own. Dunn carved a place in the history of country swing, during a two-day recording session of 30 one-take cuts, making the first recording of music on an electric guitar, which was his self-engineered electric instrument.

Tulsa state patrol officer Clinton Riggs invented a funny-shaped sign with just the word yield that, without changing laws or the construction of intersections and access ramps, reduced accidents and saved lives.

Nautilus inventor Arthur A. Jones built his first exercise machine while living at the Tulsa YMCA.

Grocer Sylvan Goldman created the shopping cart so that his Oklahoma City customers could buy more on each trip to the grocery store the icon in the upper corner of your Amazon page is the icon of Sylvans legacy.

Another icon invention, Carl Magees parking meter, improved traffic flow and access to parking in Oklahoma City and in all other 49 states.

The Malzahn family, of Ditch Witch fame, gave the world a whole new way to install underground utilities safely and efficiently from gas, electric, and plumbing in the 1950s to telecommunications, CATV, and fiber options today.

Edward Roberts in 1974 invented the first personal computer that attractedPaul Allen and Bill Gates, who then wrote Altair BASIC, the first high-level coding language which became the first product of Microsoft, and the foundation upon which Gates and Allen eventually built the largest software company in the world.

DNA was discovered in 1869 when Swiss biologist Friedrich Miescher found an odd substance that didnt match the proteins he expected in his research of white blood cells. It took another 100+ years, extensive Nobel-caliber research, and groundbreaking advances in computer technology and nuclear medicine to gain the understanding we have today of DNA.

Just as human development is built on the hereditary material of DNA, so is Oklahomas path of innovation and construction of the entrepreneurial DNA of our state. With pride and determination, we need to continue to build on our amazing history of commercializing great ideas that happen here.

Scott Meachamis president and CEO of i2E Inc., a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the states technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state support from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology and is an integral part of Oklahomas Innovation Model. Contact Meacham at i2E_Comments@i2E.org.

Originally posted here:
Meacham: Oklahoma has long exhibited the DNA of entrepreneurship - Oklahoman.com

Earlham College researchers have returned to Iceland with a variety of tech tools to help Icelanders learn more about their Nordic past.

Computer scientist Charlie Peck and biologist Emmett Smith have spent a month at the end of a long peninsula on the east coast of Iceland. Peck explains if you were to drop a stick in the ocean in Norway, the currents would likely bring that stick near the sites where they are working with Icelandic archaeologists.

Peck and Smith are doing what they call 21st century science. Examining the past not only requires archaeologists, but computer scientists using drones to locate where to dig and biologists to identify DNA found in the environment, particularly soil.

The National Geographic Society is funding the project looking at some of the earliest Viking settlements in Iceland in the year 875.

Peck, Smith and the archaeologists want to know what was there and what the people were doing there.

According to Smith, "If I take a soil sample, extract DNA, are we going to find things like particular whole species or fish species that we know they would be consuming? Are we going to see sheep we know they were husbanding? Do we have dogs, horses and cattle which are not in Iceland natively?"

Peck pulls up a picture during our Zoom interview that shows very dark soil. That's the fire pit his drone, guided by computer software, picked up in a giant field.

"You'll fly and pick out features through the change in surface plants that tells you to dig here," he says.

They are also creating a 3D map in a river valley to measure erosion. Climate change is more pronounced in Iceland than in the Midwest and the scientists, when comparing their map to a British-made one in 1942, can determine how nature moves in as the glacier recedes. Microbes in the soil are also useful in determining this.

Smith has dozens of soil samples but moving them across international borders isn't easy. They will use a series of techniques and specialized tools to extract the DNA from the soil samples and store it in tubes. "Then we just come back with a hundred 1.5 ml tubes on frozen vegetables - to keep them cold - and bring those back to Indiana to do the sequencing and the analysis on."

What Have They Found?

Archaeologists discovered a Roman coin which could mean the site was once a trading post.

Smith focuses on the DNA found in soil.

"The henbane and the cranberry in particular indicate that we are seeing ancient DNA that was brought to this location in the form of plant material by the settlers. We've not yet found any human DNA. That was our goal. But every year the technology (and) the analysis tools get better."

Yujeong Lee is telling Earlham's story on the Earlham Field Science Instagram account.

Blog:https://fieldscience.cs.earlham.edu/andhttps://fieldscience.cs.earlham.edu/index.php/blog-2021/

Continued here:
How Drones And DNA Can Drill Down To The Past - WVXU

By Maggie Brown, WRAL multiplatform producer

Tampa, Fla. A Florida man was charged with sexual battery in relation to a cold case that happened in 2007. Police used genetic genealogy testing to find Jared Vaughn, 44, after he submitted his DNA to the genealogy website, FamilyTreeDNA.

In 2007, a woman was assaulted after a man offered to drive her home. At that time, a sexual assault kit was done to try and identify the woman's attacker, officials said.

A crime lab used GEDmatch and FamilyTree's DNA databases to identify Vaughn as a possible suspect, according to authorities. A warrant was obtained and officials gathered a swab from Vaughn, to confirm that his DNA matched what was in the kit.

Police have used DNA from online genealogy sites to solve dozens of cold cases, according to Pew Research.

According to a survey from June, 48% of people said they were OK with DNA testing companies sharing data with police. A third said it was unacceptable, and 18% were unsure.

The website officials say Vaughn used, FamilyTree, only allows law enforcement to use its site to solve homicides, sexual assault or abduction cases.

Experts say that even if someone did not use a genealogy website, their DNA could still be retrieved. Someone's third cousin's DNA profile on FamilyTree could be used by law enforcement in an investigation, according to Nia Bala, a senior attorney at the Policing Project at New York University Law School.

"I click the box and say, yes, law enforcement can use my information. That feels above board," she told Slate. "But what about my third cousin? Do they know that their information essentially is out there as well, because my DNA and their DNA are linked?

See the original post here:
Man charged with sexual battery in 14-year-old cold case after entering his DNA into ancestry website - WRAL.com

Headlines about molecular genetics being used to shed new light on old mysteries or even put criminals behind bars have become increasingly more common.

In South Africa DNA is being used to answer important questions about everything from a group of peoples origins to the biological paternity of a child.

But paternity tests arent just applicable to modern cases. Fellow researcher Christoff Erasmus and I considered DNA evidence to understand a divorce case dating back 321 years. The events before and after the divorce case of Maria Kickers had long-term consequences for a family with a surname that, for decades, appeared often among the countrys white leaders. That name is Botha.

The first prime minister of the Union of South Africa, established in 1910, was Louis Botha. There was also PW Botha, the last prime minister to hold that title, and the first to become executive state president of the Republic of South Africa.

Our research shows that Kickers lied in her 1700 divorce case at the Cape of Good Hope. Her lie about the paternity of her children led to a chain of events that affected the Botha lineage, resulting in 38 000 people carrying that name when in fact they were descendants of Ferdinandus Appel.

The genetic evidence, which we gathered using a DNA-based paternity test kit, in combination with the documented testimonies, suggests that Ferdinandus Appel was likely the father of Kickers first son and Frederik Botha the father of the other boys. When we genotyped a random sample of Botha males. We found that almost half of them have the Appel rather than the Botha Y chromosome.

The false paternity claim means that tens of thousands of Bothas more than 76 000 South Africans had this surname in 2013 should in fact be called Appel, a very uncommon name in the country.

If the Kickers divorce case was heard today, DNA evidence would have refuted the lie about paternity outright and the Botha family may well have shattered. Our findings provide another reminder that DNA evidence can clarify events that happened centuries ago, deepening and improving our understanding of history.

One of our sources was a set of records presented by Richard Ball, who is linked to the families at the heart of the divorce case. We also drew information from published genealogical records.

From these we pieced together the following events.

Kickers married Jan Cornelitz in 1683 at the Cape. They had seven children four boys and three girls. Christening records for six of these children have been located; all named Cornelitz as the father. In 1700 Jan filed for divorce, claiming that Maria cheated on him with Ferdinandus Appel as well as a tenant who farmed alongside him, Frederik Botha.

Maria denied any involvement with Ferdinandus Appel, but confessed that Frederik Botha was the biological father of all her children.

In her own defence, she claimed that Jan, her husband, encouraged her relationship with Frederik Botha because Jan was onbequaamd a Dutch word meaning incompetent.

Frederik Botha confirmed before the court Marias claim that all her children were his. While the court did not find Maria to be licentious, they did not give her permission to remarry. As a result, Maria and Frederik Botha had to wait until Jan died, 14 years later, before they could marry. The children then took on the name Botha.

Y chromosomes are inherited like surnames. So, any of Marias sons descendants along an unbroken line of males should carry identical Y chromosomes, bar a few mutations.

With the help of a genealogist we managed to contact and obtain DNA samples from all four of Marias sons along unbroken male lines. In three cases, more than one descendent was found. We genotyped these Bothas Y chromosomes with a kit that is used for paternity tests. The Y chromosomes clearly separated into two groups distinguished by too many mutations to have stemmed from the same Botha ancestor. Within each group, there were a few mutations between individuals, as one would expect for two Y chromosomes with 11 to 19 ancestors between them.

Interestingly, the one group linked to Marias first-born son, whereas the other sons descendants all shared virtually identical genetic profiles. This pattern piqued our curiosity as it suggested that the first sons profile may have stemmed from Ferdinandus Appel.

To test this idea, we genotyped two Appel men: one was a clear match to the first sons descendants. It is 130 times more likely that Marias first son was fathered by Ferdinandus Appel than by a random male that just happened to have the same Y chromosome profile

When we genotyped a random sample of Bothas we found that almost half of them have the Appel rather than the Botha profile. To understand why the first son seems to account for more than a quarter of modern Bothas, we looked at the male descendants as listed in the genealogical records published by the now-closed Genealogical Institute of South Africa.

Just counting the 62 males that were 30 years old or younger in 1780, 45% descended from the first brother while the other three Botha brothers accounted for the remaining 55%. The high number of the first brothers descendants in 1780 could thus explain why so many of our random sample grouped with the Appel profile.

Originally posted here:
Sex, lies and DNA: why many 'Bothas' in South Africa have the wrong surname - The Conversation CA