Category Archives: DNA

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) A new set of DNA has been identified among the 85 victims of the AMIA Buenos Aires Jewish Center attack, strengthening the hypothesis that the 1994 attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

The discovery was announced on Monday by the AMIA Special Investigation Unit of the General Prosecution, two weeks before the 23rd anniversary of the bombing that also injured hundreds. The final report after two years of investigation by a forensics team, reveals for first time the existence of a genetic profile among the reserved remains in the laboratory of the Federal Police that doesnt belong to any known victims.

With this information the prosecutors in charge of the special unit are working on the hypothesis of the suicide bomber and have already taken steps in the field of international cooperation to try to match the profile obtained with that of samples of relatives of the suspected individual. The suspected individual isnt mentioned in thereport released to the publicbut is part of a previous report by the special unit, where he is named asIbrahim Hussein Berro, a Lebanese citizen and an alleged member of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

In May 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI director James Comeymet in Washington, D.C., with Argentine Justice Minister Germn Garavano and offered to extendtechnical help to the Argentinean Justice Department regarding the AMIA attack and the death of special prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

The body of a possible suicide terrorist was never found or identified until now. Five Iranians are on the Interpol international police agencys most wanted list in connection with the AMIA 1994 attack, however.

ProsecutorsSabrina Namer, Roberto Salum and Leonardo Filippini have led the AMIA Special Investigatory Unit since their predecessor, Alberto Nisman, who was discovered shot dead in his apartment in January 2015 hours before he had been scheduled to appear in Congress to present allegations that then-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner orchestrated a secret deal to cover up Iranian officials alleged role in the AMIA bombing. Fernandez denied the allegations and judges threw out the case; it was reopened one year ago, though no conclusions have yet been announced.

The two years work on the DNA analysis was conducted by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, the Forensic Medical Body and the University of Buenos Aires.The same team one year ago identified victim number 85 of the AMIA attack.

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New DNA identified in AMIA Jewish center bombing points to suicide attack - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Mr. Charmatz said the idea for 10000 Gestures came to him while watching one of his own pieces, Leve des Conflits Extended, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2013. The idea of Leve was that it was based on limited gestures, so you were constantly circling through the sequence, like a living sculpture changing shape, he said. I thought, what if you flip that, and have a piece where none of the dancers ever repeat a gesture or do the same one as anyone else?

How do you create 10,000 completely different gestures? Over many, many hours working in a group on various themes, Mr. Charmatz explained. The themes included: doing nothing, microscopic movements (raising an eyebrow, flicking fingers), violence, eroticism, dance history, obscenity, and politics a Brexit means Brexit gesture made by Theresa May is even in there.

Each person has a different idea about what an erotic or a violent gesture might be, Mr. Charmatz said, so you get 25 variations on these ideas all happening together.

All the themes come in a specific order and last for a predetermined amount of time, he explained, although the number of dancers onstage and the groupings they create vary constantly. When it was pointed out that structuring the work through changing configurations might verge on good choreography, he laughed. Of course I want it to be compelling to watch, he said. Im bringing all my skills, even the ones I dont have, to this piece.

A major name in the European contemporary dance world, Mr. Charmatz has never followed a traditional path. He made his name when still quite young: In 1993, at 19, he choreographed Bras le Corps with Dimitri Chamblas, a friend from the Conservatoire de Lyon, where both had trained after defecting from the Paris Opera Ballet school to pursue a more contemporary dance orientation. The simplicity, physicality and direct attack of Bras le Corps, performed in a boxing ring with spectators seated on all sides, was a salutary shock in the highly theatricalized world of 1990s French dance.

Mr. Charmatz continued on an iconoclastic path. He did not form his own ensemble or accept commissions for companies. He danced with various troupes and collaborated with fellow choreographers while creating relatively few pieces, which were often more like installation works than conventional dance performances. From 2002 to 2004, he ran a nomadic school for 15 students; he has written a book about contemporary dance and is a co-author of two others.

When he was appointed, in 2009, to lead the National Choreographic Center in Rennes, his first decision was to change its name to the Muse de la Danse. Unlike most of the choreographers who head regional centers in France, Mr. Charmatz has no permanent company, and works on a project-to-project basis. (His term in Rennes ends in 2018.)

Boris brings movement and ideas together in space in extraordinary ways, said John McGrath, the director of the Manchester International Festival, who added that he was keen to make dance an increasingly important part of the biennial event. How do ideas manifest in art? The ambition of this work, the largest he has ever made, and the ambition of the idea felt like something we could really embrace.

The experience of creating 10000 Gestures has been grueling but exhilarating, said Mr. Chamblas, who still dances Bras le Corps with Mr. Charmatz and is performing in 10000 Gestures. It is all entirely fixed choreographically, and you have to be very precise, and switch from one parameter to another extremely fast, he said.

He gave a quick run-down: At the beginning of the piece are the gestures of doing nothing, but very fast, 25 of them; then 15 movements going backwards, then 55 crazy movements, then five rest positions. All of that is about a minute.

Mr. Charmatz said that an important early decision was to perform almost everything at high speed. Whats interesting is to create a storm, like snowflakes coming at you in the light, he said. Its as if we keep running, the piece will hold together. Or like the idea that when you are dying, your life flashes before you. It plays also with the idea, which people are always saying, that dance is ephemeral, that no two moments are ever the same.

The underlying idea of death, he added, felt important, and also the idea of being fully present. Referring to the recent suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert, he said: We are in Manchester, with everything that happened here, so I have used Mozarts Requiem in the piece. And not to be too political, but its easy to feel, especially in France, like you cant move for problems migrants, unemployment, Brexit. In some ways this is also about moving on. Every moment says now.

A version of this article appears in print on July 5, 2017, on Page C2 of the New York edition with the headline: Breaking Down the DNA of Dance.

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A French Choreographer Who Plays With the DNA of Dance - New York Times

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) On the Fourth of July, we also remember the men and women who fought so that we can remain free.

More than 78 thousand soldiers were reported as missing in action in World War II.More than 70 years later, The Defense Department is still trying to bring closure to their families.

Its been more than a year process for Rich Zilkowski.Hes been waiting to find out whether he is related to a World War II soldier killed in action.

A Buffalo mans body was recently found in Germany. Now, Ziklowski says he finally has found closure.

Last year, Zilkowski got a call from a federal agent with the Army Casualty Office at Fort Knox.He was asked if he knew someone named Stanley Sachinowski.

Zilkowski said, To finally hear that name after so many years, a flood of memories; my grandmother and pictures, and famous war stories and her unrelenting belief that one day he would come home.

Uncle Stanley was considered a soldier missing in action.The pictures no longer exist, but for Zilkowski, the stories definitely did.

He said, I had heard the legend of my uncle, but I hadnt thought about him, I wasnt even born when he was killed.

The closest living relative to Sachinowksi, Zilkowski was asked to send in his DNA. He said, It was a match, it was a perfect match.

The agency had found a piece of his shoulder, in Germay. Zilkowski said, He was killed on December 5th 1944 by an accidental explosion near Germany. His remains were never recovered.

Now Zilkowski is learning everything from the exact spot he died, to how he played a role in one of the biggest battles in World War II.

Zilkowski said, People have come up to me and said this has been trusted on you for a reason, there is a purpose youre here.

Zilkowskis uncle died in the battle of Hrtgen forest, one of the longest battles in American history with the heaviest amount of casualties in world war II.

Rich Zilkowski will now receive any belongings that his Uncle Stan left behind. He says, for him this closes a chapter and answers unanswered questions.

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North Tonawanda man takes DNA test, finds connection to missing relative killed in WWII - wivb.com

Rolando Arriaza has visited hospitals, morgues and even the harsh, mesquite-covered terrain in South Texas that his brother trekked nearly two years ago after illegally crossing into the U.S. all as part of an ongoing effort to find his siblings remains and bring his family closure.

You want to know if he died and you want to find the body, said Arriaza, whose 50-year-old brother Hugo Arriaza, from Guatemala, disappeared in August 2015 after being abandoned by a smuggler when he became ill.

Like many family members of missing immigrants, Arriaza, 45, has submitted DNA so it can be compared to remains found along the Texas-Mexico border. But while Arriaza, who lives in Philadelphia, submitted DNA to U.S. authorities, many others choose a different path that complicates potential identification of their loved ones remains. Many missing immigrant family members living outside the U.S., or who live in the country but fear going to authorities due to concerns about their immigration status, instead give their DNA to non-governmental organizations working on this issue.

But advocacy groups say these families DNA samples are being denied access to an FBI database used to make matches in missing persons cases because law enforcement didnt collect the sample. The groups say this issue has gone unresolved for years, leaving unused a valuable source of genetic data that could bring closure to hundreds of cases.

How big is the problem, and how somber are the findings? More than 2,900 immigrants have died while crossing the Texas-Mexico border alone since 1998, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. But its unclear how many remain unidentified.

Since 2003, 222 of 879 cases of unidentified human remains sent from Texas border counties to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification have led to identifications. But the center which works with law enforcement on missing persons cases cautions theres no way to definitively say if the identified remains belong to immigrants.

A review of reports on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Systems database shows more than 320 unidentified remains found along the Texas-Mexico border since 2007 are likely immigrants.

A large number of immigrant remains in Texas have been found in Brooks County, where authorities about four years ago discovered many had been haphazardly buried in a local cemetery. The county is home to a Border Patrol checkpoint 70 miles north of the border that immigrants avoid by walking around it for days. Arriazas brother was attempting to do so when he disappeared.

Kate Spradley, a biological anthropologist at Texas State University in San Marcos helping identify remains found in Brooks County, said shes frustrated by the slow identification pace. Her lab has received 238 sets of remains but only 24 have been identified. Most are from Brooks County, but some are from other counties, including 13 sets exhumed in May in Starr County.

The DNA samples that are collected by (non-governmental organizations) in Latin America are what we need to make identifications, she said. Complicating Spradleys efforts is a lack of funding, including a loss this year of a federal grant.

Spradley said access to more family member DNA would be welcomed as six more cemeteries in several other South Texas counties have been identified where immigrants were buried.

Texas law mandates DNA samples from unidentified remains must go to the University of North Texas, which sends them to the FBIs Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS database. But per FBI rules, samples from potential family members not collected by law enforcement are denied access to CODIS.

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DNA used to identify immigrant remains in Mexican border - Concord Monitor

The season finale of Love and Hip-Hop Atlanta gave us one final look at all the drama before it all goes down at the reunion next week. The episode opens with Kirk going off on Shirleen during their family camping trip. He blames her for getting in his business. Basically, hes scapegoating, or trying to run a diversion. He then goes off on the producers for effing up his family. Basically, hes acting like a child and still not taking responsibility for his dirty dog ways as if anyone forced him to cheat on his wife.

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You know Shirleen isnt with the games so she does not let him talk to her like she was Rasheeda. Kirk is solely to blame for losing his family, and yelling like a maniac in front of his kids doesnt help his situation. Lets just get these DNA test results and keep it pushing.

Stevie and Joseline just cant get right, not even for the sake of co-parenting Bonnie Bella. Theyre on the outs again and Joseline is threatening to move back to Miami with Bonnie Bella. Stevie has also decided not to fire Estelita, like he originally promised Joseline, and that hes going to move forward with managing her music career. Things get even more explosive between Joseline and Stevie after Stevie refuses to appear on the Wendy Williams Show with her. Joseline booked herself, Stevie and Bonnie on the show without telling Stevie. He initially agreed because they were actually getting along, but of course that was short-lived situation. Stevie stood her up in New York and Joseline snapped because the appearance got cancelled. Things got so bad that she refused to let cameras film her, and at the end of the episode production wrote a montage about how Joseline, who has always been difficult to work with, got increasingly more uncooperative and combative with staff and cast mates so they dont even know if shes going to show up to the reunion (she does make an appearance according to the previews, but its not clear whether shell actually film with any of her co-stars).

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Jasmine had the nerve to write Rasheeda a letter claiming shes not the person Kirk is trying to paint her out to be and that she wants to meet up with Rasheeda to apologies. Anyway, do you hear the sounds of the tiniest violin ever?

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The letter also came with Logans DNA test results. Logan is not the babys father. So, it looks like it could be Kirk. Word on the street is, it is Kirk, and well get the results during what will be an explosive moment at the reunion.

On a positive note, Tommie and her mom finally go to therapy and confront each other about their and they have a break through. Tommies mom apologies for all she put her through and Tommie forgives her. They both agree to move forward. Looks like theres hope for them.

The episode wraps as the usual finales do, with dramatic vignettes featuring each cast talking about how everything is working out in their lives yatta yatta. Even Momma Dee and Ernest are working on getting their relationship back on track. Whatever. Well be on standby for next weeks reunion drama, especially Kirks DNA test situation (even though, according to #TheBlogs, Kirk Frost is the father).

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'LHHATLS6' Recap: Kirk Frost Is Still Acting A'Fool As We Await The DNA Test Results - HelloBeautiful

Weve waited all season and the results are finally in: Kirk you ARE the father!

According to reports, Kirk Frost is in fact the father of Jasmine Washingtons child, Kannon. The childs paternity has been a storyline for Kirk and wife Rasheeda on season 6 of Love & Hip Hop Atlanta with Kirk denying he was the father, and Rasheeda (and mama Shirleen) demanding he take a DNA test.

Kirk was hesitant at first, but eventually went and took a paternity test. The results will reportedly be read during the LHHATL reunion.

READ MORE:Kirk Frost Desperate to Win Rasheeda Back Despite Cheating & Possibly Fathering a Child Outside Their Marriage

A source who attended the reunion taping in Mayspilled some teato The Shade Room. The tipster revealed that a DNA test excluded Jasmines ex Logan as the baby daddy, leaving only Kirk as the possible father.Media Take Outalso reported similar details.

Of course, well have to watch the reunion to find out the official results, but it looks like Kirk really is the low-down, dirtydog we all knew he was. No wonder he was hell-bent on not taking a DNA test, because he already knew the truth.

Despite being vindicated by the results, Jasmine apparently did not attend the reunion taping. However, she did write a letter to Rasheeda apologizing for not privately coming to her woman to woman about her long-term affair with her husband that produced child.

READ MORE:LHHATL Season 6 Reunion Spoilers: Jessica Dime Fights, Joseline Quits & Is Kirk the Father?

Jasmine previously sued Kirk for child support in January. She requested $2,500 a month and listed her own income as $0, stating Kirk was financially supporting her until he abruptly stopped and subsequently started denying Kannon as his child. However, her case was stalled as Kirk dodged being served the court documents.

Kirk and Rasheeda have been married for 18 years and have two children together. Though their marriage has somehow survived Kirks cheating in the past, Im not sure how Rasheeda will react and respond to this latest blow. Kirk even preemptively served his wife separation papers in the shows most recent episode.

The Love & Hip Hop Atlantaseason 6 finale airs Monday (Jul. 3) on VH1. Part 1 of the highly-anticipated reunion airs July 10.

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You ARE the Father! DNA Test Proves Kirk Frost Is Jasmine Washington's Baby Daddy (Report) - Gossip On This

July 4, 2017

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure can cause DNA damage and may be one of the contributing factors in the global amphibian extinction crisis. New research from Prof Craig Franklin and a team of researchers from The University of Queensland, Australia shows how tadpoles living at low temperatures are more at risk of DNA damage than previously thought.

"We found that low temperatures hinder the effectiveness of the DNA repair mechanisms," says Prof Franklin, "this may explain why frogs that live at high altitudes and cooler temperatures appear to be more susceptible to the harmful effects of UV radiation."

"High energy UV-B radiation 'attacks' DNA and causes lesions between base pairs," explains Prof Franklin, "if these lesions are not repaired, they can interrupt replication of the DNA and result in mutations or cell death."

Amphibians are currently facing a global crisis with many threats to their survival, including increasing exposure to harmful UV-B radiation. When DNA is damaged by UV-B radiation, dedicated enzymes will attempt to repair the damage. However, it was previously unclear how temperature might affect the ability of these enzymes to repair the DNA damage caused by UV radiation.

In a controlled laboratory setting, Prof Franklin and his team simulated the environmental conditions during summer to investigate the interacting relationship between temperature and UV-B radiation on the ability of the frogs to repair their DNA.

The species examined in the study, the common striped marsh frog, is a common resident in Brisbane, Australia. "We had shown with previous studies that this species is very susceptible to UV-B radiation," says Prof Franklin, "we work on the larvae as they are active during the day and live mostly in shallow water, exposing them to more sunlight than the adults."

Prof Franklin adds that amphibian populations living at high-altitude and cooler temperatures are most at risk from UV-related DNA damage: "These are some of the environments where we have seen some of the big declines in frog populations since the formation of the ozone hole in the early 1980s."

Prof Franklin believes that identifying the causal factors of amphibian declines, especially those driven by human activity, is the first step to protecting them. For holidaying humans however, Prof Franklin suggests a simpler solution for preventing DNA damage: "keep out of the direct sun during summer!"

Explore further: Sunbathing not good for tadpoles

(PhysOrg.com) -- The thinning ozone layer in the upper atmosphere may be a key factor in the collapse of frog populations worldwide, new research shows.

A group of researchers at Osaka University found that if DNA damage response (DDR) does not work when DNA is damaged by radiation, proteins which should be removed remain instead, and a loss of genetic information can be ...

Australia's saltwater crocodiles appear to be in hot water, with a University of Queensland study linking climate warming to shorter dives, putting the crocs' survival at risk.

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research recently conducted by two ecologists, Wendy Palen at Simon Fraser University and Daniel Schindler at the University of Washington, finds that Pacific Northwest amphibian species are far less ...

What exactly are the processes when x-ray photons damage biomolecules with a metal centre? This question has been investigated by a team of scientists at the Institute for Physical Chemistry of Heidelberg University. Using ...

An interdisciplinary research team led by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston reports a new breakthrough in countering the deadly effects of radiation exposure. A single injection of a regenerative peptide ...

As senses go, there's nothing so immediate and concrete as our sense of touch. So it may come as a surprise that, on the molecular level, our sense of touch is still poorly understood.

The mass extinction that obliterated three-fourths of life on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs, set the stage for the swift rise of frogs, a new study shows.

The conventional way of placing protein samples under an electron microscope during cryo-EM experiments may fall flat when it comes to getting the best picture of a protein's structure. In some cases, tilting a sheet of frozen ...

The town of Escalante in southern Utah is no small potatoes when it comes to scientific discovery; a new archaeological finding within its borders may rewrite the story of tuber domestication.

New research into the way that honeybees see colour could pave the way for more accurate cameras in phones, drones and robots.

Researchers have long assumed that habitat fragmentation contributes to extinction risk for animals, but until now, they have not been able to measure it for a major group of animals on a global scale. In a first-of-its-kind ...

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Low temperature increases risk of DNA damage from UV radiation - Phys.Org

A discarded cigarette butt at the scene of a 2014 gang-related killing in Chicago led authorities to arrest and charge a man with murder Thursday.

Jeffery Freeman, 24, was charged with first-degree murder in the October 2014 alley shooting that left one man dead, the Chicago Tribune reported. A judge ordered Freeman held on $1 million bail.

Authorities said Freeman was instructed by his fellow gang members to go and check Torrence Pickens, who was smoking and drinking in an alley and moved to a car when members of Freemans gang approached Pickens for allegedly being on their territory.

Surveillance footage captured Freeman, who was smoking a cigarette, holding a loaded gun and walking toward Pickens. He tossed the cigarette butt as he approached Pickens and fired multiple gunshots.

Police found Pickens body sitting in the car. The person who was with Pickens gave a description of the shooter, according to the Chicago Tribune. The description matched Freemans.

Police also recovered the cigarette butt and video footage. A DNA sample from Freeman was then compared to the DNA from the discarded cigarette and it was matched, according to prosecutors.

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Police use DNA from discarded cigarette butt to link man to 2014 Chicago murder - Fox News

/ Cory Doctorow / 4:14 am Mon

British geneticist Adam Rutherford is one of the country's great science communicators, an alumnus of Nature whose work we've celebrated here for many years; with his second book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, Rutherford reveals how the century's astounding advances in genetic science reveal just how little we understand about our genes -- and how our ideas about race and heredity are antiquated superstitions that reflect our biases more than our DNA.

At its worst, scientific debunking can be a kind of grim and humourless exercise in which a distinguished scientist explains how you've got it all wrong and scientists really know very little about a subject that you thought they'd had nailed down, and you should really be couching all your statements about the truth of the world in so many caveats that no statements can be discerned. That's not Rutherford's style.

Rutherford is one of the most sprightly and delightful science communicators in the field, a writer who uses footnotes for comic relief with skill not seen since the heyday of Douglas Adams, whose delight in language is matched by a wonder for the things science does teach us, who uses that delight to shine a glorious light on marvels even as he pitilessly illuminates the often harmful bullshit that the public has been told to believe about what genetics says about them.

Rutherford's thesis is that the more we learn about our genome, the more we learn about ourselves as a species -- and the less we can know about ourselves as individuals. Population-wide genetic sequencing reveals truths about how closely related we all are (we're all cousins, and much closer ones than you probably suspect), how little our alleged "race" predicts about us, and how much of what we think of as "heredity" is more complicated and weirder than we've been led to believe.

Brief History challenges our understanding of what a species is, and what our species is, as the extraction of genomes from living specimens and ancient fossils reveals that humans, neanderthals and other cousins co-existed for unimaginably long timescales, and crossed and re-crossed their DNA. Contrast this profligacy and its outcomes with the closely guarded, inbred "noble blood" of Europe's royal houses, whose belief in their own genetic superiority led them to breeding experiments that produced insane, pain-wracked monarchs whose reigns were marred by seizures, delusions, and violent outbursts that only ended when the lines' terminal specimens could no longer breed.

The upshot of all this is that those 23-and-me-style genetic "analyses" that you can send away for are fairy tales, describing genetic propensities that are more likely to be statistical ghosts than real phenomena, and family histories that rely on categories ("Germanic," say) that have no objective basis in reality.

But while your individual sequence won't tell you much about who you are and where you came from, these corpuses -- especially the public interest ones gathered by research scientists and not private, woo-peddling companies -- are revealing an astonishingly detailed picture of humanity's pre-history.

Genetics and heredity have a checkered past: at its best, our study of DNA has given us breakthroughs in fighting disease, breeding better crops, and learning about our common destiny. At its worst, it has provided demagogues with scientific cover for racist rhetoric and violence. As a new era of data-driven genomics dawns, Rutherford is determined to rescue it from being turned to evil ends and elevate it to a pedestal from which it can teach us how much we all share with one another.

A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived [Adam Rutherford/Orion]

A German start-up has prototyped a bread oven that operated in microgravity that may someday enable astronauts to enjoy fresh-baked goods in space. Currently, astronauts eat tortillas because they arent crumbly and have a long shelf-life. (See the below photo of a rather unappetizing tortilla cheeseburger on the International Space Station.) From Space.com: On Earth, []

Scott Pruitt, the Trump administrations top environmental official, privately met with the CEO of Dow Chemical just before reversing the EPAs efforts to ban a widely used Dow pesticide. Multiple scientific studies showed chlorpyrifos can damage the brains of children. Todays Associated Press story is a clear case for why the Environmental Protection Agency and []

The YouTube channel HooplaKidzLab demonstrates some awesome science experiments you can try with your kids this summer. Heres another video from the channel about how to make a robotic arm out of popsicle sticks:

If big-game bow hunting sounds a little too intense for your delicate sensibilities, or you want to start building your kids archery proficiency early, this Real Action Crossbow Set is a fairly convincing replica of the real thing.The toy bow fires suction-cup tipped bolts up to 20 feet, so you can work on your marksmanship []

If theres such a thing as a household name for networked home audio systems, Sonos is definitely at the top of the list. And for good reasontheir products provide dead-simple wireless setup, with hi-fi speakers designed for a wide variety of interior spaces. But for anyone who doesnt care about brand-name prestige, the QFX Elite []

Its easy to forget about your phones dependency on modern infrastructure when you have free public WiFi and consistent access to electrical outlets. But for all their ubiquity in first-world urban spaces, smartphones become a lot more temperamental once theyre out in the wilderness. To keep using your devices offline abilities when you go off []

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A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: DNA, individuals, and species - Boing Boing

KTVB , KTVB 3:33 PM. MDT July 02, 2017

The Esther Simplot Park in Boise (Photo: Deren Martinez/KTVB)

BOISE - DNA test results show that fecal bacteria from dogs, geese and humans contributed to the recent E. coli contamination in several Boise ponds, city officials said on Sunday.

Ponds in Esther Simplot Park remain closed due to high E.coli levels, while Quinn's Pond reopened on Friday. The ponds were closed on June 21 after routine testing found levels above state water quality standards for recreation.

The Central District Health Department has received several reports of illness linked to swimming in the ponds, officials said.

DNA test results released Sunday point to three main causes of fecal bacteria in the ponds: dog feces, goose feces and human feces. The city said the human feces only showed up during a second round of testing.

Officials announced on Friday that dogs are no longer allowed at Quinns Pond or Esther Simplot Park, including the ponds and the previously designated dog off-leash area.

MORE:Quinn's Pond reopens, but no dogs allowed

Dog owners will still be allowed to use Greenbelt paths through Esther Simplot Park for connectivity, but dogs must be kept on-leash and out of closed areas.

The health and safety of our citizens is paramount and the decision was made to keep dogs out of Quinns Pond and Esther Simplot Park to help manage bacteria levels and prevent sickness, parks director Doug Holloway said in a statement.

The city is also ramping up efforts to scare the geese from the ponds, and is increasing frequency of goose feces removal at both parks. Officials also said they plan to continue to educate the public about the importance of using swim diaper for children recreating at the ponds.

2017 KTVB-TV

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Portions of Greenbelt open as cities continue to assess damage

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Most of Boise Greenbelt reopens as floodwaters recede

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DNA tests reveal sources of E. coli contamination in Boise ponds ... - KTVB