Category Archives: DNA

DNA from an ancient toe bone has provided new insight into the lives of Neanderthals, revealing that inbreeding was common among the group and may have contributed to their demise.

Scientists sequenced DNA from a 50,000-year-old toe bone of a female Neanderthal, found in Denisova Cave in Siberia where fossilized remnants of human ancestors were found in 2010, according to the report in the journal Nature. The analysis suggested that her parents were genetically close enough to be either half siblings, first cousins or an uncle and a niece.

The findings suggest the population of Neanderthals was small, making inbreeding more common among them than among ancestors of modern humans, said David Reich, a study author and professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston. The low levels of genetic diversity also may have made them less fit over the long run, leading to their extinction, although that is still conjecture, Reich said.

We know these people were mixing with their close relatives, Reich said in a telephone interview. This seems to be something special about the Neanderthal population, it has this feature of inbreeding. We know this wasnt a single event.

Neanderthals were thought to have lived in Europe until 30,000 years ago, possibly overlapping with modern humans there, according to an accompanying editorial by Ewan Birney, a biologist at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Cambridge, U.K. and Jonathan Pritchard, a geneticist at Stanford University in California.

The DNA analysis now provides researchers with a Neanderthal genome that can be studied to more closely track known interbreeding with other early human ancestors.

Early studies from incomplete DNA suggested that modern humans split off from Neanderthals and another, less-well-known cousin, the Denisovans, about 600,000 years ago. As technology improved, evidence was developed that ancestors of modern humans had, in fact, mated with Neanderthals. The Denisovans were discovered through DNA.

Although todays Neanderthal bone was found in the same cave as a Denisovan finger bone sequenced earlier, the two individuals werent closely related. The ancestors likely split from each other about 400,000 years ago.

In the genes, the scientists found evidence for a sequence thats different from any known group of human ancestors, suggesting that there may have been other hominids contributing genes.

It does seem that Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene was an interesting place to be a hominin, with individuals of at least four quite diverged groups living, meeting, and occasionally having sex, Birney and Pritchard wrote in their editorial.

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Ancient Toe Bone Shows Incest Role in Neanderthal Decline

DNA from a former Harris County Sheriff's deputy was found on a baby blanket used to clean up after an alleged rape earlier this year, prosecutors said Thursday.

Donald Wayne Tipps, 48, was indicted this week for sexual assault and official oppression over allegations the deputy forced a woman into sex instead of arresting her for an open warrant on Aug. 13.

In court, prosecutor Lauren Byrne said DNA was found on the blanket, the victim and her clothes after the woman went to a hospital and reported the alleged attack.

Byrne said the woman told authorities Tipps came to her home with an arrest warrant, took her to a bedroom, unzipped his pants and asked, "How do you want to take care of these tickets?"

Tipps resigned from the sheriff's office after the allegations surfaced in August.

State District Judge Catherine Evans said Tipps is prohibited from contacting the woman while free on bail.

Tipps and his attorney, Earl Musick, declined to comment after leaving court.

The district attorney's Civil Rights Division has said there could be additional victims in the Tipps case and asks anyone who is a victim or knows someone else who is to call 713-755-7077 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

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DNA on baby blanket links former deputy to alleged rape

DNA analysis of early human remains from a Siberian cave has revealed the existence of a mystery human species.

A team of researchers speculates that this could have been Homo erectus, which lived in Europe and Asia a million years ago or more.

Meanwhile, the researchers report that they have also obtained the most complete DNA sequence ever from a Neanderthal.

Details of the work appear in Nature journal.

Finds at Denisova cave in Siberia have deepened our understanding of the human groups living in Eurasia before modern humans (Homo sapiens) arrived on the scene.

The Neanderthals were already well known, but DNA analysis of a finger bone and a tooth excavated at the cave revealed evidence of a human type living 40,000 years ago that was distinct both from Neanderthals and modern humans.

When this work was published in 2010, the team behind the discovery dubbed this human species the Denisovans after the Siberian site.

The Neanderthal toe bone was found in the same cave in 2010, though in a deeper layer of sediment that is thought to be about 10,000-20,000 years older. The cave also contains modern human artefacts, meaning that at least three groups of people occupied the cave at different times.

A high quality genome sequence was obtained from the small bone using techniques developed by Prof Svante Paabo and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and it reveals some interesting insights about Neanderthals and humans.

For example, the researchers say, the Neanderthal woman was highly inbred and could have been the offspring of half-siblings who shared the same mother.

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DNA data reveals existence of mystery human species – Report

DNA Vergadering 07-11-2013
DNA Vergadering 07-11-2013.

By: dnasuriname

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DNA Vergadering 07-11-2013 - Video

White Supremacist DNA Test on a TV Show Says He Has African Ancestry
White Supremacist DNA Test on a TV Show Says He Has African Ancestry SUBSCRIBE to NewsBreaker #39;s YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/YgsSEg A white supremacist rec...

By: NewsBreaker

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White Supremacist DNA Test on a TV Show Says He Has African Ancestry - Video

Google And The Push To Control Your DNA - Leuren Moret - Part 1 of 3
Part 2:http://youtu.be/iGIc13UxbM4.

By: Morph314

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Google And The Push To Control Your DNA - Leuren Moret - Part 1 of 3 - Video

Defects in DNA repair proteins - Jim Haber (Brandeis)
Example of DNA repair protein defects which can cause genomic alterations.

By: iBioEducation

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Defects in DNA repair proteins - Jim Haber (Brandeis) - Video

DNA sequencing and genomics pt2
Part 2 of this series. BTW, #39;highly conserved genes #39; are those which differ very little between distantly related species. Links to pt1 http://youtu.be/SoMB3...

By: Tom Dare

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DNA sequencing and genomics pt2 - Video

HARRISBURG -- Prosecutors and victim advocates urged a House panel Tuesday to support requiring collection of DNA from people arrested for -- but not yet convicted of -- certain serious crimes.

Currently, state law requires DNA samples to be taken from people who are convicted of felonies and certain misdemeanors. The House Judiciary Committee is considering legislation by Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, that calls for collection of DNA at the time of arrest from people charged with murder and felony sex offenses, along with certain other serious crimes. The bill cleared the Senate 38-9 in June.

Representatives of the Pennsylvania district attorneys and attorney general's office -- as well as the mother, turned advocate, of a 22-year-old woman who was murdered in New Mexico in 2003 -- told House members Tuesday that taking DNA samples at arrest would help authorities solve crimes. In some cases, they said, this would prevent rapes and murders.

Twenty-eight U.S. states and the federal government require the collection of DNA at certain arrests, said David Freed, Cumberland County district attorney and president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association. One of those laws -- from Maryland -- survived a challenge to the Supreme Court, which ruled in June that police can take genetic samples in arrests for serious crimes.

A representative of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania testified against the bill, saying that taking DNA at the time of arrest turns on its head the premise that defendants are considered innocent until they are proven guilty.

"This person has been arrested for one crime," said Andy Hoover, legislative director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "The government has no other evidence that they are a suspect in any other crime, but putting them into the database makes them a suspect indefinitely."

But committee members sounded receptive to the change.

"From my perspective, if you put arrestee information into the lab, this database system and you solve one more murder or one more rape that doesn't occur because you have the system, then that's enough," said Rep. Bryan Barbin, D-Cambria. "You're making an academic argument about something that has real consequences."

The legislation also makes other changes to DNA collection in Pennsylvania. It would expand DNA collection at conviction to additional misdemeanors, including those requiring registration as a sex offender. It also would allow the police to search the state database for profiles likely to be those of close relatives of a person whose DNA was found at a crime scene.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, said he plans to bring up the bill for a vote next week.

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Pa. House panel considers collecting DNA at arrest

Originally published November 12, 2013 at 4:45 PM | Page modified November 13, 2013 at 7:30 AM

Well, thats awkward: A white supremacist who made headlines worldwide for plotting to take over a town in North Dakota received the results of a DNA test and the results say hes 14 percent black.

And this all happened while cameras were rolling.

Craig Cobb, 61, who has tried to create a white enclave in tiny Leith, N.D., submitted a DNA sample to Trisha Goddards talk show and got the results back during a recent taping.

The UKs Daily Mail newspaper got a copy of the segment of the show, which is nationally syndicated by NBC, and posted video of the moment Goddard read out the results to Cobb in front of a studio audience.

Eighty-six percent European and, Goddard said, pausing as the audience started to cheer before she continued, 14 percent sub-Saharan African!

The audience erupted in cheers and laughs as a grinning Cobb began to protest.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on, just wait a minute, Cobb said. This is called statistical noise.

Sweetheart, you have a little black in you, Goddard said.

Listen, Ill tell you this, oil and water dont mix!

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White supremacist takes DNA test, finds out he’s part black