Daily Archives: July 18, 2021

COVENTRY, R.I. (WPRI) A DNA test lead to a heartfelt meeting in Coventry this week.

Paul Bassett has been trying to find out more about his birth father, who he had never met. For Christmas, he got an Ancestry DNA test which led him to an even more special gift.

Its kind of nerve-racking, Im kind of nervous, Pauls daughter Amanda Bassett said. Its kind of crazy after all of these years.

Amanda got her dad the DNA test and thats how they discovered Pauls two sisters Christine Hencler and Patricia Gray.

We live 40 minutes down the road, like we couldve met at like a Market Basket, Amanda said.

And I couldve walked by her 100 times and wouldve never known, Paul said of his sister, Christine.

Instead, Christine and her brother met for the first time in Coventry this week, and spoke to 12 News about the heartfelt moment.

I always was wondering if I had siblings before, I always had a feeling so its a good thing that came out, Christine said. I got to meet my brother.

53 years later, Paul said, his hand around Christines shoulder. Its amazing, it really is.

The two siblings say they have a lot of time to make up for and they plan on spending plenty of it together in the future.

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Local siblings meet for first time in 50+ years thanks to DNA test - WPRI.com

Recently, investigators in Montana solved what is believed to be the oldest-known cold case in the U.S. after two teens were murdered in 1956.

But the DNA testing detectives used is now getting restricted as more states look to pass laws barring certain genealogy testing from law enforcement.

On January 3, 1956, the bodies of 18-year-old Dwayne Bogle and 16-year-old Patty Kalitzke were found face down, miles apart from one another, with bullet wounds to their heads. Detectives with the Cascade County Sheriff Office worked the case tirelessly, finding more than 35 suspects who all turned out to be unlikely culprits in the case.

Then, in 2019, Detective Sgt. John Kadner decided to try something.

He sent in a piece of preserved evidence, a vaginal slide taken during Kalitzkes autopsy, to a laboratory that returned the sample with a piece of discovered DNA.

[The lab] was able to swab that slide and identify sperm samples, which ultimately led to a DNA sample, which was fed into a genealogical database, and that was able to identify three known test-takers, said Sgt. Kadner.

The process, which has become more popular in recent years, is called genetic genealogy and works just how Sgt. Kadner explained.

Evidence from a case is sent to a lab for testing. Once a DNA sample is identified, investigators take it and put it into a genealogical database, similar to 23andMe or Ancestry.com, which has millions of samples from people trying to trace their family history. Once a match-- or in this case, matches-- come back, investigators treat them as leads and get to work.

[Genealogy testing] was the only way we were able to solve this cold case, said Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter.

To people like Sheriff Slaughter, the testing bypasses drawbacks, like only being able to cross-reference investigative data with known criminals in their records. But to professor of civil liberties at New York University, Erin Murphy, making this information known and available is nothing more than a slippery slope.

You know, I have real concerns about genomic information in the criminal justice system, she said. It could end up hurting you in the future. Someone could de-identify you in a covert operation abroad, [or] it could be used to exclude you from military service.

To ensure things like that do not happen, Maryland and Montana have both passed laws restricting the use of genealogy testing in criminal investigations.

In Maryland, a judge will need to sign off on the practice, which can only be used for serious crimes like murder and sexual abuse. A similar statute exists in Montana, where investigators must first get a search warrant approved by a judge.

Similar legislation is also being discussed in Utah and Washington state, which have both proposed bills in the last year.

A recent study from scientists in Israel found a genealogical database of around 1.3 million people could identify around 60% of people in the U.S. with European descent, showing just how many matches could come from one DNA sample, and in many cases, people who sign up for these websites might not know their information is being used in criminal investigations.

Legislation of this kind is good for the business interests, said Murphy. If you want to put yourself out there as were genomic genealogists that does crime-solving, I think theres a lane for that, but theres also a lane to say were genomic genealogists who believe in your genomic privacy.

In this case, the countrys oldest known cold case, the suspects family members were helpful, and Sgt. Kadner says grateful, as the practice of DNA testing led to their closure.

But Murphy poses the question, At what cost?

From a constitutional perspective, I think its a good decision," said Sheriff Slaughter. "But from a 'my ambition to solve those crimes and put those people away,' it is a little bit of a roadblock."

More here:
States work to pass laws that restrict DNA testing in criminal investigations - The Denver Channel

Opinion: The prejudices and discrimination Latinos faced date back to Arizona's territorial days. They also emboldened generations of heroes who rose in resistance.

Terry Greene Sterling| opinion contributor

As the American West was opening up to white non-Latino settlers, extensive traveler and journalist Richard Hinton wrote a popular Arizona guidebook for prospective newcomers.

The Hand-Book to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins and Scenery was published three decades after the United States won the Mexican-American War, thus acquiring most of what would become Arizona and setting the Mexicans who lived there on a treacherous path. Whats more, Hintons guidebook came out a scant 13 years after southern Arizona and the rest of the Confederacy were defeated in the American Civil War.

Those two pivotal events in Arizona history, plus the fact that many members of Indigenous nations in the state had either been slaughtered, or had died of disease, or had been confined to reservations, would not only shape Arizonas politics and prejudices that continue to this day but also embolden generations of heroes who were willing to resist them.

And such prejudices were clearly on Hintons mind way back in 1878,when he warned prospective settlers about Mexicans.

He described them as quite primitive with a shiftless way.

Hinton used the catch-all term Mexicans to identify American citizens of Mexican descent as well as Mexican immigrants. The label has been embracedby many non-Latino whites to identify generations of Mexican immigrants and American citizens who have called themselves Hispanic, Mexican American, Chicano/a, Latino/a or Latinx.

When Hinton published his guidebook, Phoenix was a tiny farming community founded by an ex-Confederate soldier. The settlement, now a city, is widely thought to be named after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes. After all, early Phoenix was built on the ruins of Indigenous communities.

But the word Phoenix is also a post-Civil War code word for a rebirth of the South, writes Edmund Drago in his book Confederate Phoenix: Rebel Children and Their Families in South Carolina.

And given the discriminatory policies that have reigned over Maricopa County for well over a century, including policing, I cant help but wonder if early settlers named Phoenix after the code word instead of the bird. The influence of the Old South isundeniable in early Phoenix.

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For years, local zoning restrictions forced most people of color to live in overcrowded, segregated neighborhoods. And while Mexican labor largely built the town and nourished the profitable farmlands surrounding it, Mexicans were routinely stereotyped by the local media in a way that reflected the towns sentiments.

Treacherous greasers were especially denounced by the local press, which gave considerable space to their violent exploits, writes Bradford Luckingham in Minorities in Phoenix: A Profile of Mexican American, Chinese American, and African American Communities, 1860-1992.

The Arizona Republican, the ancestor of this newspaper, depicted Mexicans as brawling drunkards and thieves who upset white women.

Its not at all surprising that Mexicans were occasionally lynched in early Phoenix.

There was so much more that made life difficult for Mexicans in historic Arizona. A state miscegenation law outlawed the marriage of whites to most people of color, including those with visible traits of Indigenous DNA. A voter suppression law that required literacy tests. Unfair wages. Unlawful deportations of Mexican American citizens to Mexico.

Alfredo Gutierrezs dad Samuel, an American citizen born in Arizona, was illegally deported to Mexico in the 1930s. Samuel eventually returned to Arizona and became a union activist in Miami, an Arizona mining town.

Gutierrez as a child got to witness firsthand what resistance to civil rights abuses could accomplish.

Thanks to the movement his dad joined, Mexicans were finally paid the same wages as whites in the mines. Schools and swimming pools were desegregated.

That childhood experience shaped Gutierrezs lifelong commitment to social justice.

Mentored by Cesar Chavez, Gutierrez was elected to the Arizona Senate when he was 26 and soon became the majority leader. Gutierrez told me that thelegendary Republican power broker Burton Barr once said to him, You are one of the smartest Mexicans I have ever met.

Starting in the mid 2000s, Gutierrez became one of many leaders of a Latino-led resistance that stood up to the powerful politico who became the patriarch of modern Arizona xenophobes Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The son of an immigrant, Arpaio for several years in the mid to late 2000s hunted immigrants in Maricopa County. You go after illegals. Im not afraid to say that he once famously said. And you go after them and you lock them up.

His massive immigration-themed traffic sweeps did a lot more than that. Theyensnared American citizens and provoked terror in Latino neighborhoods. Arpaio also enforced new state laws meant to criminalize and deport unauthorized immigrants.

Arpaio, who has always claimed he is neither a racist nor a xenophobe, was nevertheless enormously popular with those in his mostly white base who viewed Mexicans in much the same way as Richard Hinton et al. had viewed them many decades before.

Given Arizonas history, most who joined the resistance to Arpaio took his actions personally.

The resistance was made up of thousands of heroes and heroines who stood on the shoulders of earlier activists like Cesar Chavez and Samuel Gutierrez.

And while Central Americans, Indigenous folks and non-Latino allies took part in the resistance against Arpaio, most of its members were Mexicans.

Lydia Guzman united families with loved ones caught up in Arpaios raids. She gathered plaintiffs for a federal court case in which a judge would find that Arpaio and his deputies had indeed engaged in unconstitutional policing.

Guzman also set up a hotline that was the only place some felt they could turn to for social services and advocacy. And she assisted the U.S. Department of Justice in its civil rights investigations of Arpaio. Her activism so consumed her that she lost her house to foreclosure and her husband to divorce.

But she never gave up, and in the end she triumphed.

Carlos Garcia, now vice mayor of the city of Phoenix,was born in Sonora and spent much of his boyhood as an undocumented immigrant in Arizona.

He became an activist in college and blossomed as a young leader in the Puente Human Rights Movement. This group of young immigrant and citizen activists was instrumental in the resistance because it carried out brave street actions that forced the public not to ignore the impact of discriminatory policing on the Latino community in Maricopa County.

Thanks to the tireless, yearslong work of this resistance, Arpaio is no longer in office.And Arizonas constitutionally sketchy state immigration laws have been mostly defanged or stopped by the courts.

But the influence of the Old South still remains in Arizona. Many see it in the Maricopa County ballot count and voter suppression efforts in the Arizona Capitol. Others see it in ongoing discriminatory policing of people of color in Maricopa County.

The resistance is still standing up to these forces, and serves as a model to those who want to stop whats tearing the nation apart civil rights abuses, institutionalized white supremacy, xenophobia and voter suppression.

In short, the same ills that were rooted in territorial Arizona when Richard Hinton wrote his guidebook still exist today. Still, theres a chance they can be tamped down in this era of demographic change and movement towards racial reckoning.

There is a way for just about everyone to become engaged in social justice. The movement to stop Arpaio and Arizonas immigration laws was made up of everyday folks. Day laborers and politicians. Hotel maids and lawyers. University students and engineers. Undocumented immigrants and American citizens. People of color and their white allies.

They battled for their civil rights on the streets, in voting booths, in the public square, in the halls of Congress and in the courts.

They didnt give up.They lost some battles and won others, but they trudged on.

And in the end, they were, and are, on the right side of history.

Terry Greene Sterling is a three-time Virg Hill Journalist of the Year. Shes the coauthor of a new nonfiction book, "Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance," whichtells stories of Arizonans on both sides of a battle for civil rights and American identity in a timeof demographic change. On Twitter:@tgsterling.

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Racism shaped Phoenix, long before Sheriff Joe Arpaio. But it's also inspired a resistance - The Arizona Republic

A jury this week convicted a western Washington man of cutting down and stealing three valuable bigleaf maples from Olympic National Forest, marking the first time that a federal court has considered tree DNA as evidence in a trial.

In their indictment, prosecutors alleged that in July and August 2018, Justin Andrew Wilke, codefendent Shawn Williams, and another companion illegally felled three bigleaf maple trees under cover of night near Elk Lake in the Olympic National Forest. Bigleaf maple, which can grow up to nearly 160 feet tall, and bears attractively-patterned timber valued for use in furniture and stringed instruments. When the trio encountered a bees nest in one of the trees, the government claimed, they tried to burn it with gasoline.

Though they attempted to extinguish the flames with dirt and water from a nearby creek, prosecutors said the end result was the Maple Fire, a 3,300-acre blaze that cost roughly $4.2 million to bring under control. (While Wilkes co-defendent Shawn Williams pled guilty to setting the timber alight, the jury found Wilke not guilty on those counts, apparently based partially on the testimony of witnesses who said they saw him standing next to the fire but did not see him cause it. In a statement to the Washington Post, Wilkes lawyer Gregory Murphy said that, though Wilke did not dispute that he, along with other uncharged co-conspirators, unlawfully profited from unlawfully logged maple, he denied causing the fire.)

While Wilke claimed that the timber, which he sold to a local mill, had come from private land, Richard Cronn, a research geneticist for the U.S. Forest Service, testified that DNA from the wood matched the remains of the trees found in the national forest.

In a press release, the United States Attorneys Office for the Western District of Washington heralded the conviction as the first time DNA evidence from a tree had been introduced at a federal trial.

The DNA analysis was so precise that it found the probability of the match being coincidental was approximately one in one undecillion (one followed by 36 zeroes), the office claimed. Based on this evidence, the jury concluded the wood Wilke sold the mill had been stolen.

Wilke, 39, faces up to 10 years in prison when the court sentences him in October.

Link:
Olympic National Forest Lumber Thief Convicted Thanks to Tree DNA - Backpacker

Image: KTSDESIGN/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images

ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs.

Scientists have discovered DNA sequences in wetland soil that are unlike anything ever found and which could have important and unanticipated climate implications, according to a new preprint study co-authored by a Nobel Prize Laureate, among other genomics researchers.

The authors of the new paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, named these genetic elements Borgs after the recurring villains in Star Trek, because they assimilate genes from other organisms.

Borgs are extrachromosomal elements, meaning that these DNA sequences are found outside the chromosomes that lie within the nucleus of most cells and that contain the majority of an organisms genetic material. Examples of extrachromosomal elements include plasmids, which can replicate outside of a hosts chromosomes, and some viruses.

Exactly what Borgs are remains a mystery at this point, but it is clear that they share genes and proteins with organisms that oxidize methane, called methanotrophs, that belong to the genus Methanoperedens, suggesting that they acquired these elements through past gene transfers. Methanotrophs are of immense interest to climate change researchers because they reduce atmospheric emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to rising global temperatures.

Speaking for myself, I was really very excited, especially once it became clear that they carry genes directly involved in methane oxidation, said senior author Jillian Banfield, a biogeochemist and geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, in an email.

Banfield and her colleagues realized they were dealing with something special after sequencing DNA found in the wetlands of Lake County, California. Her team includes several researchers from the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), a partnership between UC Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco that was founded by Jennifer Doudna, who received the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and is a co-author of the new study.

The researchers have studied a huge variety of microbial entitiesbacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, viruses, phages, and plasmids, for instancethat inhabit watery habitats such as groundwater aquifers, soils, and vernal pools. The Borgs were clearly different from anything they had seen before, hinting at a distinct evolutionary origin.

In studying one wetland soil (vernal pool) we identified fragments of enigmatic genomes that were clearly archaeal but could not be classified easily as any type of known genetic element, said Banfield, who leads the Microbial Initiative at the IGI.

We then sought them in other datasets we have generated, she continued. Using this approach, the researchers were able to collect at least 19 examples of Borgs, and sequence four complete genomes, thereby establishing the existence of a substantial lineage of related entities with clearly shared (and somewhat unusual) features making them novel extrachromosomal elements.

The team color-coded the 19 groupsthere are Orange, Lilac, and Rose Borgs, for exampleand described some of their perplexing properties, including their exceptionally enormous size. The DNA sequences were most abundant in deep anaerobic (oxygen-poor) soil and sometimes exceeded actual Methanoperedens populations in these locations by eight times. Indeed, there was no consistent relationship in the abundances observed between the Borgs and the methanotrophs they interact with, adding another layer of mystery to their origins and behavior.

That said, the Borgs do clearly contain metabolic genes, which might be able to boost the energy metabolisms of Methanoperedens that host them. If so, these unique genetic elements could provide new insights into reducing methane emissions, which is a major aim for climate change mitigation plans.

We expect that Borgs increase the overall amount of methane that a Methanoperedens can oxidize, in part by making them more able to adapt to changing conditions, Banfield said. Thus, one short term strategy is to figure out how to foster Methanoperedens in agricultural soils (which are already manipulated) that are more robust due to the Borgs than those without.

The team is also interested in resolving a more basic question: what even are these Borgs? They could be giant linear viruses, or plasmids unlike anything previously reported, or perhaps a sibling Methanoperedens lineage that underwent gene loss and established a symbiotic association within Methnoperedens, according to the study.

To get a better handle on the countless riddles posed by these weird DNA sequences, the researchers hope to find more Borgs in other datasets. Banfield said that this research could lead to the discovery of new mechanisms for processes that as yet, we dont even know exist.

Thus, the analogy may be made to CRISPRa system with only partially predicted function related to microbial defense against viruses, but ultimately a fantastic new toolset, she concluded.

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Newly-Discovered 'Borg' DNA Is Unlike Anything Scientists Have Ever Seen - VICE

Fourteen people alive today in Italy can claim that they are descendants of Leonardo da Vinci, according to a study of the Renaissance genius' family tree.

Researchers traced da Vinci's genealogy over nearly 700 years and 21 generations, from 1331 to the present day, beginning with da Vinci's great-great-great grandfather Michele.

The findings, published July 4 in the journal Human Evolution, could enable historians to reconstruct da Vinci's genome, helping them "scientifically explore the roots of his genius" and other characteristics, such as his left-handedness and unique sensory perceptions, the researchers wrote in the study.

Alessandro Vezzosi, a historian at the Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci in Italy, and Agnese Sabato, president of the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association, mapped five major branches of the updated family tree. Da Vinci, best known for painting "The Last Supper" and "The Mona Lisa," had no children, but his blood relatives include 22 half siblings. The Renaissance artist, scientist and engineer was born out of wedlock on April 15, 1452.

Vezzosi and Sabato scoured historical documents to identify the living relatives through an unbroken male line from da Vinci's father, Ser Piero, and half brother Domenico. The living descendants range in age from 1 year old to 85 years old, according to the researchers.

The historians are planning to conduct genetic analyses of the living relatives to zero in on the Y chromosome, which is passed down to male descendants, and "in which the indelible profile of Leonardo's personal and family identity is stamped," the researchers wrote in the study. Because this particular male line is unbroken, it's possible that the Y chromosome remains unchanged, they said.

In addition to revealing new insights into da Vinci's personality and health, a DNA study could help verify his remains. Da Vinci died in 1519 and is thought to be buried in Amboise, France, but the precise location is not known.

The new study is part of an international effort to find and sequence the polymath's DNA. The so-called Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project includes researchers from the Leonardo Da Vinci Heritage Association, the Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci and the California-based J. Craig Venter Institute.

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Da Vinci's DNA traced through living relatives to understand his genius - Yahoo News

The world is still not over with the COVID-19 pandemic and now anotherhighly infectious virus is on a surge. Also known as thevomiting bug, Norovirus is highly infectious and causes vomiting and diarrhoea but usually passes in a couple of days. This normally peaks in the winter months.

But cases of the bug have recently been increasing across England.Outbreaks have been particularly concentrated in nursery and childcare facilities with far more than expected in summer months, Public Health England (PHE) said.

In the past five weeks, 154 outbreaks have been notified, compared with an average of 53 outbreaks for the same time period in the previous five years.PHE said while young children were affected, there has also been a rise in infection in all age groups.

The overall number of laboratory-confirmed norovirus reports across all age groups has also recently increased to the levels seen in previous years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Norovirus is commonly known as the winter vomiting bug.

It is easily transmitted through contact with infected individuals or contaminated surfaces.

Norovirus is highly infectious and causes vomiting and diarrhoea but usually passes in a couple of days.

The increase in outbreaks has been mostly in educational settings, particularly in nursery and childcare facilities.

Symptoms include sudden onset of nausea, projectile vomiting and diarrhoea.

Symptoms can also include a high temperature, abdominal pain and aching limbs.

Norovirus can be spread through food contaminated by the virus when food is handled by symptomatic people or infected individuals.

Stay at home if you are experiencing norovirus symptoms.

Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and warm water.

Unlike for COVID-19, alcohol gels do not kill off norovirus so soap and water is best.

A bleach-based household cleaner or a combination of bleach and hot water should be used to disinfect potentially contaminated household surfaces.

If you are ill, avoid cooking and helping prepare meals for others until 48 hours after symptoms have stopped.

Wash any contaminated clothing or bedding using detergent and at 60C, and if possible, wear disposable gloves to handle contaminated items.

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DNA Explainer: Know about highly infectious Norovirus and precautions to be taken - DNA India

TACOMA, Wash. - For the first time in federal court, tree DNA has been used to help decide a case.

39-year-old Justin Wilke was put on trialfor his role in an illegal logging operation at Washington's Olympic National Forest. In 2018, Wilke and his accomplice Shawn Williamsillegally felled maple trees and sold the lumber to sawmills. Williams was then sentenced to 30 months in prison.

But that's not all. In August 2018, the two encountered a tree with a wasp's nest at its base. They decided to burn the nest with gasoline to get rid of it.

A blaze soon erupted, which ended up burning 3,300 acres of forest. Many of the destroyed trees were bigleaf maple, a prized species used in higher-end acoustic guitars.

Dubbed the "Maple Fire", officials estimated it cost around $4.2 million to eventually contain.

Now, prosecutors used DNA analysis to determine that the lumber Wilke sold matched the remains of three bigleaf maples taken from the forest. This proved that the trees had not been harvested legally from private lands, as Wilke had said.

The DNA analysis was so precise that it found the probability of the match being coincidental was approximately one in one undecillion (one followed by 36 zeros), saidthe U.S. Attorneys Office for Western Washington.

Wilke was convicted ofconspiracy, theft of public property, depredation of public property, and trafficking and attempted trafficking in unlawfully harvested timber. Wilke could face up to ten years in prison. He will be sentenced in October.

See the full Department of Justice release here.

The rest is here:
Tree DNA helps convict timber thief who started forest fire - woodworkingnetwork.com