Category Archives: DNA

Love & Hip Hop fans who tuned in for the shows final reunion episode were in for a major let down, as Kirk Frost refused to reveal DNA test results that would prove if he had a lovechild a plot point the show had been building to ALL season.

Vh1 needs to listen up, because we have some really good advice: Do not disappointLove & Hip Hop: Atlantafans. They are a vicious, hilarious, savage crew who will come at you if you do not deliver on a promise. Thats exactly what happened on July 17, when LHHfans went into a rage afterKirk Frost, 48, refused to reveal DNA test results that would prove if he was the father of Jasmine Washingtons son during the seasons final reunion episode.The story of Kirks infidelity in his marriage to wife Rasheeda had been a MAJOR part of season 6 and fans wanted the return on their investment.

Viewers immediately went to the best place to vent their frustrations Twitter. There they wrote responses to this complete betrayal that were absolutely epic. WAIT. Sooo they focused the entire season on Kirks infidelity and we STILL dont know if the child is his!! Im done, one fan tweeted. Kirk still didnt take DNA on this d**n baby. He was so fast take a secret DNA test on Rasheedas son . FOH , another fan wrote. So we really not making Kirk do a paternity test. Like he aint made a WHOLE baby on Rasheeda?! another user tweeted, defending Kirks wife of almost 20 years. The only thing better than the tweets were the GIFs that accompanied them.

Jasmine did not participate in the reunion special and actually made some social media noise of her own when the first part aired last week. Kirks alleged baby mama took to Instagram to share alleged texts between herself and Kirk that show him being involved in his sons life and even telling her he loved her.

HollywoodLifers, do you think Kirk should have refused to take the test? Let us know below!

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On 'LHH' Finale & Fans Are Furious See Tweets - Hollywood Life

ByTyler Adkisson July 17, 2017

For thepast 10 yearsor so, direct-to-consumer genetic tests have made determining your ancestry and predisposition to some diseases as easy as mailing a cotton swab of spit to a lab. But how reliable are they?

In some cases, it's hard to say what counts as accurate because the science isn't very precise to begin with. Ethnicity isn't determined by a specific gene, so the results actually show users where similar DNA has been found around the globe.

And for the few companies that do show their math, like Ancestry.com, their sample sizes are relatively small. They divide the world into 26 genetic regions and use only 115 samples to determine what's representative of a specific region.

Other companies don't even publish how they get their results, making it hard to check their work. Each also relies on its ownunique algorithms, so consumers could get different results depending on the company they choose.

Related StoryWhat DNA Testing Can Tell You, From Serious To Silly

That's why many personal genome service kits include disclaimers, like "for recreational purposes."

Regulating the industry hasn't been easy, either. In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration sent 23andMe awarning letterfor failing to assure its product was "analytically or clinically validated" for diagnosing some diseases. It wasn't until 2017 when the company got some approval from the agency.

So, if you think you're in the market for a DNA test, theFDAandCenters for Disease Control and Preventionsuggest meeting with a doctor.

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How Much Should You Trust Your DNA Test? - Newsy

Luckily, our children dont inherit too many dangerous mutations

Blend Images /ERproductions Ltd/Getty

By Michael Le Page

Youre far from a perfect product. The code that makes us is at least 75 per cent rubbish, according to a study that suggests most of our DNA really is junk after all.

After 20 years of biologists arguing that most of the human genome must have some kind of function, the study calculated that in fact the vast majority of our DNA has to be useless. It came to this conclusion by calculating that, because of the way evolution works, wed each have to have a million children, and almost all of them would need to die, if most of our DNA had a purpose.

But we each have just a few children on average, and our genetic health is mostly fine. The study therefore concludes that most of our DNA really must be junk a suggestion that contradicts controversial claims to the contrary from a group of prominent genomics researchers in 2012.

When researchers first worked out how DNA encodes the instructions for making proteins in the 1950s, they assumed that almost all DNA codes for proteins. However, by the 1970s, it was becoming clear that only a tiny proportion of a genome encodes functional proteins about 1 per cent in the case of us humans.

Biologists realised that some of the non-coding DNA might still have an important role, such as regulating the activity of the protein-coding genes. But around 90 per cent of our genome is still junk DNA, they suggested a term that first appeared in print in a 1972 article in New Scientist.

But throughout the 2000s, a number of studies purported to show that junk DNA was nothing of the sort, based on demonstrating that some tiny bits of non-coding DNA had some use or other. These claims proved popular with creationists, who were struggling to explain why an intelligently designed genome would consist mostly of rubbish.

The grandest claim came in 2012, when a consortium of genomics researchers called ENCODE declared that, according to their project, a huge 80 per cent of the DNA in the human genome has a function. They had spent $400 million, they wanted something big to say, says Dan Graur of the University of Houston.

Graur is one of many researchers who didnt believe ENCODEs claim. The heart of the issue is how you define functional. ENCODE defined DNA as such if it showed any biochemical activity, for instance, if it was copied into RNA. But Graur doesnt think a bit of activity like this is enough to prove DNA has a meaningful use. Instead, he argues that a sequence can only be described as functional if it has evolved to do something useful, and if a mutation disrupting it would have a harmful effect.

Mutations to DNA happen at random for several reasons, such as UV radiation or mistakes made when DNA replicates during cell division. These mutations change one base of DNA into another an A to a T, for example and when they occur in a gene are more likely to be harmful than beneficial.

When we reproduce, our children inherit a shuffled bag of mutations, and those with a collection of particularly bad ones are more likely to die before having children of their own. This is how evolution stops bad mutations building up to dangerously high levels in a species.

Following Graurs logic, if most of our DNA is functional, we would accumulate a large proportion of harmful mutations in important sequences. But if most of our DNA is junk, the majority of mutations would have no effect.

Graurs team have now calculated how many children a couple would need to conceive so evolution could weed out enough bad mutations from our genomes as fast as they arise. If the entire genome was functional, couples would need to have around 100 million children, and almost all would have to die. Even if just a quarter of the genome is functional, each couple would still have to have nearly four children on average, with only two surviving to adulthood, to prevent harmful mutations building up to dangerous levels.

Taking into account estimates of the mutation rate and average prehistorical reproduction rate, Graurs team calculated that only around 8 to 14 per cent of our DNA is likely to have a function.

This ties in nicely with a 2014 study that compared our genome with other species and concluded that around 8 per cent of it is functional.

The findings are entirely supportive of one another, says one of the authors of the 2014 study, Chris Ponting of the University of Edinburgh, UK. We are walking around with a genome where only 1 in 10 bases actually matters.

We dont know how much of our DNA has a non-sequence-related function, says Ryan Gregory of the University of Guelph in Canada. Some regions of DNA are useful without having an important sequence, so mutations in these areas probably dont matter. But even taking this into account, most DNA is probably junk, says Gregory.

The challenge for those who think most non-coding DNA is vital is to explain why an onion needs five times as much of it as we do, says Gregory. I would like to think that most knowledgeable biologists who properly appreciate evolutionary theory and genomic diversity are well aware of the many problems with ENCODEs claim, he says.

But most people and even some scientists are uncomfortable with the idea that most of their DNA is junk, says Ponting. Even worse for such people, other genomic studies are now revealing that we all carry plenty of mutations that affect both our coding DNA and non-coding DNA. While evolution weeds out some of the worst ones, this doesnt stop plenty of mutations collecting in our genome.

We are walking around as individuals with relatively large numbers of our genes not working properly, he says. These are ideas some find shocking.

Journal reference: Genome Biology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evx121

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At least 75 per cent of our DNA really is useless junk after all - New Scientist

July 15, 2017 10:19 PM

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) Families of the missing are trying to seek closure for their loved ones.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension held a DNA collection opportunity for nine people who are missing a family member. People had the opportunity to provide a DNA sample to be compared with people in the national missing persons database.

Annie Montgomery and Percy McGee are the mother and brother of Shirley McGee, who went missing in Chicago in 1973.

Diane McCarthy is the sister of Mary Louise Ronning, who went missing from Minneapolis in 1979.

The BCA says there are 100 unidentified remains in Minnesota, 550 people missing at any time in the state and about 11,000 people reported missing every single year.

The BCA believes remains from five unknown people exhumed last year in Minnesota have a strong chance of being identified through their DNA profiles. But, they need families with missing loved ones to come forward to find a match.

There will be more collection opportunities this month across the state.

For more information, you can go to our website, click here.

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Families Of Missing People Seek Closure At DNA Collection ... - CBS Minnesota / WCCO

Genealogy and genetics have become interconnected. DNA can provide insight into your family heritage that cannot be obtained from genealogy research alone. But how do people go about finding out what information is found in their DNA.

On Tuesday, July 25, the Wabash Valley Genealogy Society will offer a free, public program which can help you better understand DNA testing and what is involved in deciphering some of the intriguing family connections found through DNA matches.

The program is titled Which DNA Test is Right For Me. The presenter for this program will be Tim Phipps, president of the WVGS and acknowledged DNA expert as it relates to genealogy and family history.

The program will be in the lower level conference rooms at the Vigo County Public Library in Terre Haute. The doors open at 6 p.m. with the presentation running from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Anyone with questions about this or other WVGS programs can find additional information on the WVGS website: http://www.inwvgs.org.

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WVGS to host program July 25 on DNA testing - Brazil Times

DALLAS (KDAF) -- We've all seen the commercials, but if you're thinking of sending out your DNA to trace your heritage, you might want to think again.

Yeah - it turns out those DNA testing sites that are supposed to help you discover your ancestry are not as accurate as you'd think.

RELATED: DNA test helps reunite mom, daughter after 50 years

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DNA test helps reunite mom, daughter after 50 years

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A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

A woman was reunited with her birth mother 50 years after she was adopted thanks to a DNA test that revealed they had both been searching for each other.

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Anthropologist Dr. Jonathan Marks joined Morning Dose, Tuesday via-Skye, and he says they're about as accurate as looking in the mirror.

"It's just not your grandfather's science. And what I mean by that is that it's so explicitly labeled as recreational science. It's a way of saying to customers that this result has no legal or scientific standing," Marks said.

At the end of the day, it all depends on what you expect to get out of it. He says it could certainly help reunite you with a long-lost relative, which could be valuable to you.

"You're getting something that's fun, but it's probably not going to tell you, as I said before, any more about yourself, sort of racially, than you can see looking in the mirror," Marks said.

In other words, you might just want to save your time and money.

More from AOL.com: These genetically-modified dragonflies could be used for spying one day Scientists may finally know why these magnificent corals glow in the dark Here's how your Fourth of July fireworks work

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How accurate are DNA tests from websites that trace your heritage? - AOL

All of the DNA requested has been worked, and there are no big surprises there, State Attorneys Office Chief Deputy Larry Basford told the court Thursday. The results were not only not exculpatory, but they could further incriminate him.

PANAMA CITY Recent DNA testing did not clear a man condemned to death for a 1981 murder, but he still could see a new sentencing under Florida's revised death penalty laws.

Defense attorneys had hoped a DNA test might open the possibility of a new jury trial for James Armando Card, 70, who was convicted in 1982 of the robbery, kidnapping and first-degree murder of Janice Franklin. However, during a status conference Thursday regarding Card's conviction and death sentence, prosecutors said the DNA tests appear to have backfired.

All of the DNA requested has been worked, and there are no big surprises there, State Attorneys Office Chief Deputy Larry Basford told the court Thursday. The results were not only not exculpatory, but they could further incriminate him.

Card, who has been on death row for 35 years, was not present for Thursdays status conference. Recent shakeups in Floridas death penalty procedure opened up the chance for Card to argue against the death penalty, as the jury in his case sentenced him to death by an 11-1 margin, not the newly required unanimous vote after a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled May 4 that Card was deserving of a second penalty hearing. The court then sent the case back to the 14th Judicial Circuit, where it once again will be argued.

A date has yet to be scheduled for the resentencing hearing. Card's defense also has yet to announce whether they will further pursue a new trial.

On June 3, 1981, Card had armed himself with a knife before robbing the Western Union office where Franklin worked, investigators said. During a struggle, Franklins fingers were severely cut on both hands, almost severing several fingers on her right hand. Card then forced Franklin in a car and drove 8 miles to a wooded area, where he promised he wouldnt hurt her, according to investigators.

When Card and Franklin arrived at the wooded area, Card instead came up from behind her, grabbed her hair, pulled her head back and slit her throat several inches deep. Investigators said Card then stood over Franklin, a woman he knew, and watched her bleed to death, later telling a friend he even enjoyed it.

Cards case is one of the oldest on death row from Bay County, second only to that of Charles Kenny Foster. So far, four cases in the circuit have been granted a new penalty phase while seven other people on death row are awaiting review, including Foster.

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Prosecutors: DNA tests backfire in 1981 murder - The News Herald

LAKE PARK

A Riviera Beach man remained in custody Friday following his arrest last week in connection to an alleged 2016 home invasion robbery.

Authorities say DNA evidence linked Jivon King, 25, to an August 2016 home invasion at an apartment on Venice Circle in Lake Park. King was arrested July 6 on one count of armed home invasion robbery.

A judge ordered that King be held without bail.

His arrest came a day after deputies obtained a search warrant to collect his DNA, according to a sheriffs arrest report. Following the DNA collection, King agreed to speak to detectives, the report said.

He reportedly confessed to participating in the robbery with two other people. King said he met the other two suspects while working at the Sonic Drive-In on Congress Avenue and did not know them personally. The arrest report does not identify the suspects or indicate whether any other arrests were made in the case.

The accuser told investigators at the time that he was in his apartment that night when someone knocked on his door. When the resident asked who was at the door, someone allegedly replied that it was your neighbor.

The accuser opened the door and confronted by two masked suspects, one of them armed with a handgun, deputies said. The accuser began to fight for possession of the gun before falling to the ground as the armed suspect stood over him, according to report said.

The second suspect searched the apartment and stole marijuana, prescription medication and $120 in cash. The resident said the suspects tried to disguise their voices, but he recognized one of them.

He consented to a search of his apartment and collection of DNA from his person. Investigators submitted a sample to the Combined DNA Index System, which returned a match to King, the report said.

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NEW: DNA evidence links Riviera man to 2016 home invasion - Palm Beach Post

Throughout human history, people have come up with all sorts of data storage systemsfrom cuneiform and chiseled inscriptions to hard drives and compact discs. But they all have one thing in common: At some point, they degrade.

Thats why researchers have been on a quest to find more durable data storage, like diamonds and even DNA. Now for the first time, reportsGina Kolata at The New York Times,scientists have encoding a brief movie in the DNA of living cells using theCRISPRCasgene editing techniquea move that could lead to cellular recording of health data. They published their results this week in the journalNature.

The concept behind DNA data storage is relatively simple. While digital files are essentially stored by recording a series of the numbers 0 and 1, DNA can store the same data by encoding the information into its four nucleobases, A, G, C and T.

AsRobert Service at Science reports, scientists have been doing just that since 2012, when geneticists first encoded a 52,000-word book in DNA. Though initially inefficient, over time the technology has improved. In March, a team of researchers reported they had encoded six files, including a computer operating system and a film into synthetic snippets of DNA.

For this latest study, the researchers chose a film of a galloping horse recorded by British photographerEadweardMuybridgein 1878, one of the first motion pictures ever recorded, captured in an attempt to figure out if running horses ever had all four feet off of the ground.

Researchers used the CRISPR-Cassystem to transfer the DNA to the bacteria. This system harnesses the power of the bacterial immune defensesto alter the bacteria's DNA, explainsIan Sample forThe Guardian. When viruses invade, bacteria sends out enzymes to cut apart the virus' genetic code. And it incorporates fragments of the virus DNA into its own structureto remember the invader in case of future attacks. Scientistscan manipulate this system, controlling which bits of DNA hitch a ride into the bacterial genome.

The researchers created a synthetic strand of DNA containing a five-frame blockof this video as well as an image of a handthe lettersof the nucelobases representing the shade and position of each images' pixels. "The scientists then fed the strands of DNA to E. coli bacterium" writes Sample."The bugs treated the strips of DNA like invading viruses and dutifully added them to their own genomes."

We delivered the material that encoded the horse images one frame at a time, Harvard neuroscientist Seth Shipman, first author of the study tells Sample. Then, when we sequenced the bacteria, we looked at where the frames were in the genome. That told us the order in which the frames should then appear.

As Sample reports, researchers allowed the bacteria to multiply for a week, passing the DNA down through many generations. When they sequenced the genome of the bacteria they were able to reconstruct the encoded images with 90 percent accuracy.

While it would be cool to have The Lord of the Rings trilogy encoded in your DNA one day, Shipman tells Kolata thats not really the point of this particular research. Instead, he hopes that the technique could lead to molecular recorders that could collect data from cells over time.

We want to turn cells into historians, Shipman says in a press release. We envision a biological memory system thats much smaller and more versatile than todays technologies, which will track many events non-intrusively over time.

Ultimately, Shipman hopes to use the technique to study the development of the brain. Instead of trying to observe brain cells through imaging techniques or via surgery, these molecular recorders would collect data over time from every cell in the brain, which could then be decoded by researchers.

But that day is still a ways off and the current research is just a proof of concept. What this shows us is that we can get the information in, we can get the information out, and we can understand how the timing works too, Shipman tells Sample.

While Shipman is focused on health, the tech world is also taking notice of these DNA studies. Antonio Regalado at MIT Technology Review reports that in May, Microsoft announced that it is developing a DNA storage device and hopes to have some version of it operational by the end of the decade. The advantages of DNA storage are pretty obvious, Regalado reports. Not only does DNA last a thousand times longer than a silicon device, it can hold a quintillion bytes of data in one cubicmillimeter. Every movie ever made could be stored in a device smaller than a sugarcube. The movecould eventually end the days of massive, energy sucking data centersthat arerequired to keep track of everything from great literature tovacation photos.

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Scientists Store Video Clip in DNA of Living Cells - Smithsonian

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BAY SHORE, N.Y. When PIX11 returned with the New York State Police to the Suffolk County spot where a gruesome discovery was made 35 years ago, it was a rainy day.

It was just like the day in February 1982 when three bags were discovered on the shoulder of the northbound Sagtikos Parkway. Those bags contained the body parts of 19-year-old Tina Foglia.

The location is very close to where the westbound Southern State Parkway feeds into the northbound Sagtikos in Bay Shore.

The DOT worker suspected it was a body because of the shape of the bags, Senior Investigator Simon Ocampo told PIX11. And when he got closer, he saw hair.

Tina Foglia was a brunette who loved the Long Island rock music scene at Hammerheads, once located on Sunrise Highway in West Islip -- a club that launched bands like Twisted Sister.

She spent her last night alive there on Feb. 1, 1982.

Tina was last seen at the exit of Hammerheads, Ocampo said.

She left about 3 a.m.

Acquaintances said Foglia, a home health aide from Brentwood, was known to hitchhike, even though her sister Amy had begged her not to.

The State Police are now sharing additional information with PIX11, more than three decades after Foglias murder, in the hopes that her case will be an early candidate for DNA familial searching, a special test approved for use this fall in New York state.

I think its a great candidate for it because we have the male DNA, Ocampo told PIX11.

Familial searching involves looking at Y chromosomes that are common among brothers, fathers, uncles and sons. There has been no direct hit on a national database for the male DNA retrieved in Foglias case, so familial searching could lead investigators closer to the unknown killer.

It has been 35 years, Ocampo said. The suspect may have had children or brothers who may have had sons.

Suspects convicted of many crimes in New York state are required to give a DNA sample and have it entered in a national database, called CODIS. If a criminal in the system is related to the unknown Foglia killer, investigators hope they will get a "partial match" hit on the database.

Theres definitely potential out there for relatives of the suspect to be in the system, Ocampo said.

Michael Harris is the primary investigator on the case whos working with Ocampo.

Now that technology has changed, thats why were looking into this case a little bit harder, Harris said.

The state police also shared photos with PIX11 from their case file. One shows a footprint the killer left in the mud. Another picture shows a diamond ring.

The ring belongs to Tinas sister, Amy Foglia Gagliardi, who moved to Virginia more than 30 years ago.

Amy and Tina had received identical diamond rings from their father. When Tinas dismembered body was found, the ring was missing. Yet police dont believe the motive was robbery.

Asked about the motive, Ocampo said investigators "think a sexual assault and a subsequent homicide to cover up the crime."

When PIX11 initially reported on the Foglia mystery in January, we noted the spot where Tinas body was found is several miles north of the Robert Moses Causeway, which leads to Oak and Gilgo beaches, important locations in the Long Island serial killer investigation.

We asked Senior Investigator Ocampo if Foglia could have been an early victim of LISK, the Long Island Serial Killer, who dismembered some of his victims.

Theres always the chance, Ocampo said. Its not something we would rule out.

But, Ocampo added, thats not an active avenue of the investigation.

Ocampo told us police interviewed Foglias ex-boyfriend, who was living in the south, and other men she knew in the months and years after the murder.

He said theyd like to interview some of the men again.

They also interviewed some band members from various groups that played at Hammerheads, including the music acts that were playing on Feb. 1, 1982.

Ocampo shared that some of the men interviewed over the years voluntarily gave swabs that could be tested for DNA evidence.

At the time Tina Foglia was killed, she was approximately 185 pounds and 5 feet 2 inches tall with brown eyes and brown, shoulder-length hair. Aside from Hammerheads, Foglia frequented other clubs in Islip and Babylon.

Even though police believe the killer could have pulled over on the shoulder of the Sagtikos Parkway, which is very close to the westbound Southern State Parkway ramp, they said he also could have parked on a Bay Shore street thats right behind the brush. The intersection is Privet Place and Gardiner Drive in Bay Shore.

I believe its solvable, Harris said. We just need that one, little break.

New York State Police are asking anyone with information to call them at 631-756-3300.

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Male DNA retrieved in mystery of dismembered teen left in 3 bags on Long Island Parkway - New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV