Category Archives: DNA

Baauer Harlem Shake @ DNA Lounge-Bootie SF
Best Live Harlem Shake I #39;ve seen yet!

By: Brandon Bailey

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Baauer Harlem Shake @ DNA Lounge-Bootie SF - Video

Marylands practice of taking DNA samples from individuals charged with felony burglary, breaking into cars or violent crimes will be on trial Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a request to overturn a state court decision that the law allowed an unconstitutional search.

In April, the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the taking of DNA samples from people convicted of such crimes, but ruled that those arrested who, by law, are presumed innocent should not be required in most cases to give DNA samples.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) said the courts decision is critical for Maryland and the other 27 states that have similar laws.

That is why 49 states and the District of Columbia have signed a friend of the court brief supporting DNA collection, Gansler said.

In todays world, where we have DNA technology, we ought to be able to use it to convict as well as exonerate its exactly like fingerprints, Gansler said.

The Maryland law, approved in 2008, strikes a balance and includes some of the most important privacy safeguards of any state in the country, said Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Maryland Gov. Martin OMalley (D), who signed the legislation into law.

Under Maryland law, DNA samples cannot be tested or entered into a database unless a judge, at arraignment, agrees there is probable cause or unless the individual consents to or requests testing.

If the judge does not find probable cause, the DNA sample must be destroyed.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a brief critical of the Maryland law.

On its website, the ACLU said expanding DNA collection to arrestees has marginal benefit for law enforcement and is based on a theory that has no limiting principle thereby raising significant privacy concerns.

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Gazette.Net: Supreme Court takes up Maryland DNA case Tuesday

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will try to balance the rights of Americans who have not been convicted of a major crime to keep their DNA out of the government's hands, against the government's interest in closing cold cases and the rights of crime victims to finally see justice done.

Years ago, the Salisbury Police Department thought they had finally caught a break.

A man wearing a hat and scarf and brandishing a gun had raped and robbed a 53-year-old woman in her home and then vanished into the night. Almost six years later, Alonzo King was arrested in a nearby county and charged with felony second-degree assault. Taking advantage of a Maryland law that allowed DNA tests following felony arrests, police took a cheek swab of King's DNA which matched a sample from the 2003 Salisbury rape. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.

But then a Maryland court said they had to let him go.

King was never convicted of the crime for which he was arrested and swabbed. Instead, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of misdemeanor assault, a crime for which Maryland cannot take DNA samples. The courts said it violated King's rights for the state to take his DNA based on an arrest alone. The state Court of Appeals said King had "a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches."

If the Supreme Court justices rule for King, more than 1 million DNA profiles that have been stored in a federal database for matching with future crime scene evidence may have to be purged and others will never be collected, leading some repeat offenders to go free, advocates say.

"The early collection of DNA prevents crime," said William C. Sammons of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. "Had the recidivists been identified early in their career through arrestee collection, they would not have been able to commit the bulk of their crimes."

But privacy activists see letting police use DNA information without a warrant or a conviction as another loss for American privacy, with Americans' genetic information held by the government eventually being used for other purposes, just as Social Security numbers were originally not intended to be used for identification.

"Regardless of what the government does with the DNA sample and the limits it places on the sample's use, all the highly personal data in it is in the government's possession, and outside the individual's control," said Jennifer Lynch, lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Getting DNA swabs from criminals is common. All 50 states and the federal government take cheek swabs from convicted criminals to check against federal and state databanks, with the court's blessing. But now, 28 states and the federal government now also take samples from people who have been arrested for various crimes, long before their guilt or innocence has been proven. According to court documents, the FBI's Combined DNA Index System or CODIS -- a coordinated system of federal, state and local databases of DNA profiles -- contains more than 10 million criminal profiles and 1.1 million arrestee profiles.

See the article here:
High Court takes up DNA sampling case

Sixty years after the discovery of DNA's spiraling, ladder-like structure first hinted at the mechanism by which life copies itself, one of the Nobel Prize medals honoring this achievement is up for sale.

Three men who played crucial roles in deciphering DNA's double helix in 1953 later received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The family of one of those men, Francis Crick, plans to sell his medal, the accompanying diploma and other items at auction with a portion of the proceeds set to benefit research institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom.

"It had been tucked away for so long," said Kindra Crick, Francis Crick's 36-year-old granddaughter, of the medal. "We really were interested in finding someone who could look after it, and possibly put it on display so it could inspire the next generation of scientists." Francis Crick passed away in 2004 at the age of 88.

There is little precedent for this sale. Nobel medals appear to have changed hands publicly in only a couple of instances. This particular medal, like others made before 1980, is struck in 23-carat gold, and recognizes a particularly high-profile accomplishment in biology, one fundamental to modern genetics.

The auction house handling the sale, Heritage Auctions, has valued the medal and diploma at $500,000, which is "an educated guestimate," said Sandra Palomino, Heritage Auctions' director of historical manuscripts. Estimates by Heritage's in-house coin experts went as high as $5 million, Palomino said. [See Photos of Crick's Medal & Other Auction Items]

The April auction will also include Crick's award check with his endorsement on the back, the scientist's lab coat, his gardening logs, nautical journals and books. Separately, the family hopes to sell a letter Crick wrote in 1953 to his then-12-year-old son Michael, who is Kindra's father, describing the discovery's meaning. The auction house Christies, which Kindra Crick said is handling the sale, declined to confirm plans to sell this letter.

The medal was not displayed much within Crick's family. Kindra remembers that the Nobel, which she has yet to see herself, was locked in a room with her grandfather's other awards and other family heirlooms after he moved to California at the age of 60. After the scientist's wife, Odile, passed away in 2007, the medal was sequestered in a safe deposit box. Crick's children, including Kindra's father, Michael, attended the award ceremony in 1962, but saw almost nothing of the medal afterward.

Kindra plans to get a look at the medal before the auction.

"My grandfather was not the type of personality to show off," she said. "His conversation tended to be on what's next as opposed to reminiscing about the past I guess he always thought there was more to come."

Crick's family hopes to see the medal displayed publicly after its sale; however, Kindra Crick acknowledged that a public auction offered no guarantee a buyer would display the award. But she is optimistic, saying those individuals or institutions with enough interest in science to bid on the medal are also likely to display it publicly. [Creative Genius: The World's Greatest Minds]

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Nobel for sale: Medal for discovery of DNA up for auction

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

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The company, backed by Steve Anderson of Baseline Ventures, provides detailed go-to-market strategies for B2B and B2C businesses seeking to increase their web presence and get in front of a broader audience. Services include engineering, design, analytics, branding, SEO, SEM, social media, affiliate marketing, email marketing, display advertising, video and motion.

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Referred by existing Square 1 client, Antony Brydon, ROI DNA maintains an international presence with offices in San Francisco, Paris and Moscow. Brydon is CEO and co-founder of Directly, a website dedicated to helping customers get fast, personal attention from an independent community of experts. Directly also utilizes ROI DNAs digital marketing services.

Andy Weyer, vice president in Square 1 Banks Silicon Valley office, added, ROI DNA has everything we look for when underwriting a new loan: experienced management, top tier investor support, outstanding customer references and best-of-breed products and services in their space. Were very pleased to count ROI DNA as a valued partner and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship ahead.

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About ROI DNA

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Square 1 Bank Announces Credit Facility to ROI DNA

Heritage Auctions

The 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for his work in the discovery of the structure of DNA will be offered by his family in a public auction in New York City on April 10.

By Wynne ParryLiveScience

Sixty years after the discovery of DNA's spiraling, ladderlike structure first hinted at the mechanism by which life copies itself, one of the Nobel Prize medals honoring this achievement is up for sale.

Three men who played crucial roles in deciphering DNA's double helix in 1953 later received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The family of one of those men, Francis Crick, plans to sell his medal, the accompanying diploma and other items at auction with a portion of the proceeds set to benefit research institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom.

"It had been tucked away for so long," said Kindra Crick, Francis Crick's 36-year-old granddaughter, of the medal. "We really were interested in finding someone who could look after it, and possibly put it on display so it could inspire the next generation of scientists." Francis Crick passed away in 2004 at the age of 88.

The value of Nobel goldThere is little precedent for this sale. Nobel medals appear to have changed hands publicly in only a couple of instances. This particular medal, like others made before 1980, is struck in 23-carat gold, and recognizes a particularly high-profile accomplishment in biology, one fundamental to modern genetics.

The auction house handling the sale, Heritage Auctions, has valued the medal and diploma at $500,000, which is "an educated guestimate," said Sandra Palomino, Heritage Auctions' director of historical manuscripts. Estimates by Heritage's in-house coin experts went as high as $5 million, Palomino said. [See Photos of Crick's Medal & Other Auction Items]

The April auction will also include Crick's award check with his endorsement on the back, the scientist's lab coat, his gardening logs, nautical journals and books. Separately, the family hopes to sell a letter Crick wrote in 1953 to his then-12-year-old son Michael, who is Kindra's father, describing the discovery's meaning. The auction house Christies, which Kindra Crick said is handling the sale, declined to confirm plans to sell this letter.

Out of the boxThe medal was not displayed much within Crick's family. Kindra remembers that the Nobel, which she has yet to see herself, was locked in a room with her grandfather's other awards and other family heirlooms after he moved to California at the age of 60. After the scientist's wife, Odile, passed away in 2007, the medal was sequestered in a safe deposit box. Crick's children, including Kindra's father, Michael, attended the award ceremony in 1962, but saw almost nothing of the medal afterward.

Go here to see the original:
Nobel Prize medal for DNA work to be sold

Sixty years after the discovery of DNA's spiraling, ladder-like structure first hinted at the mechanism by which life copies itself, one of the Nobel Prize medals honoring this achievement is up for sale.

Three men who played crucial roles in deciphering DNA's double helix in 1953 later received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The family of one of those men, Francis Crick, plans to sell his medal, the accompanying diploma and other items at auction with a portion of the proceeds set to benefit research institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom.

"It had been tucked away for so long," said Kindra Crick, Francis Crick's 36-year-old granddaughter, of the medal. "We really were interested in finding someone who could look after it, and possibly put it on display so it could inspire the next generation of scientists." Francis Crick passed away in 2004 at the age of 88.

The value of Nobel gold

There is little precedent for this sale. Nobel medals appear to have changed hands publicly in only a couple of instances. This particular medal, like others made before 1980, is struck in 23-carat gold, and recognizes a particularly high-profile accomplishment in biology, one fundamental to modern genetics.

The auction house handling the sale, Heritage Auctions, has valued the medal and diploma at $500,000, which is "an educated guestimate," said Sandra Palomino, Heritage Auctions' director of historical manuscripts. Estimates by Heritage's in-house coin experts went as high as $5 million, Palomino said. [See Photos of Crick's Medal & Other Auction Items]

The April auction will also include Crick's award check with his endorsement on the back, the scientist's lab coat, his gardening logs, nautical journals and books. Separately, the family hopes to sell a letter Crick wrote in 1953 to his then-12-year-old son Michael, who is Kindra's father, describing the discovery's meaning. The auction house Christies, which Kindra Crick said is handling the sale, declined to confirm plans to sell this letter.

Out of the box

The medal was not displayed much within Crick's family. Kindra remembers that the Nobel, which she has yet to see herself, was locked in a room with her grandfather's other awards and other family heirlooms after he moved to California at the age of 60. After the scientist's wife, Odile, passed away in 2007, the medal was sequestered in a safe deposit box. Crick's children, including Kindra's father, Michael, attended the award ceremony in 1962, but saw almost nothing of the medal afterward.

Kindra plans to get a look at the medal before the auction.

Read the original:
For Sale: Famed Nobel Medal for Discovery of DNA Structure

The Salisbury, Md. police department thought they had finally caught a break.

A man wearing a hat and scarf and brandishing a gun had raped and robbed a 53-year-old woman in her home and then vanished into the night. Almost six years later, Alonzo King was arrested in a nearby county and charged with felony second-degree assault. Taking advantage of a Maryland law that allowed DNA tests following felony arrests, police took a cheek swab of King's DNA which matched a sample from the 2003 Salisbury rape. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.

But then a Maryland court said they had to let him go.

King was never convicted of the crime for which he was arrested and swabbed. Instead, he pled guilty to the lesser charge of misdemeanor assault, a crime for which Maryland cannot take DNA samples. The courts said it violated King's rights for the state to take his DNA based on an arrest alone. The state Court of Appeals said King had "a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches."

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will try to balance the rights of Americans who have not been convicted of a major crime to keep their DNA out of the government's hands against the government's interest in closing cold cases and the rights of crime victims to finally see justice done.

If the justices rule for King, more than 1 million DNA profiles that have been stored in a federal database for matching with future crime scene evidence may have to be purged and others will never be collected, leading some repeat offenders to go free, advocates say.

"The early collection of DNA prevents crime," said William C. Sammons of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault. "Had the recidivists been identified early in their career through arrestee collection, they would not have been able to commit the bulk of their crimes."

But privacy activists see letting police use DNA information without a warrant or a conviction as another loss for American privacy, with Americans' genetic information held by the government eventually being used for other purposes, just as Social Security numbers were originally not intended to be used for identification.

"Regardless of what the government does with the DNA sample and the limits it places on the sample's use, all the highly personal data in it is in the government's possession, and outside the individual's control," said Jennifer Lynch, lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Getting DNA swabs from criminals is common. All 50 states and the federal government take cheek swabs from convicted criminals to check against federal and state databanks, with the court's blessing. But now 28 states and the federal government now also take samples from people who have been arrested for various crimes, long before their guilt or innocence has been proven. According to court documents, the FBI's Combined DNA Index System or CODIS a coordinated system of federal, state and local databases of DNA profiles contains more than 10 million criminal profiles and 1.1 million arrestee profiles.

Read the rest here:
Court Takes up Question of Arrestee DNA Sampling

When the Supreme Court hears a case challenging a Maryland DNA law this week, one former prosecutor will be remembering the dormant rape case she says was solved because of the law.

At issue before the court is the Maryland DNA Collection Act, a law that allows officials to take the DNA from those who have been arrested, but not convicted of a serious crime. Read the legal case here:

Elizabeth Ireland, the former prosecutor from Wicomico County, Maryland, knows the Supreme Court arguments will revolve around the legal standard the Justices should apply in analyzing the law. But she says she will be thinking back to 2009 when she was notified that there was a "DNA hit" on a rape case that had been unsolved for six years.

"I went to visit the victim, to tell her they had finally matched the DNA retrieved after she had been raped, with a man who had recently been arrested," Ireland said in an interview.

The victim, who told Ireland she had nailed shut her windows in the years following the crime, was relieved that authorities had a nameAlonzo Jay King Jr. The victim had never seen the attacker because he had a scarf over his face and a hat pulled over his head. After he raped her she went to the hospital and underwent a sexual assault forensic exam and semen was collected. The sample was loaded into a DNA data base, but no matches were returneduntil 2009.

"I remember the victim telling me in 2009, 'Thank God, I can stop wondering," Ireland said. At the time Ireland was told by a scientist that the DNA evidence was strong. "Here's how he put it: it was 3.9 quadrillion times more likely that the DNA had originated from the victim and Mr. King than from the victim and some unknown male," Ireland says.

King's lawyers moved to suppress the evidence of the DNA match, saying that the initial draw violated his constitutional rights. But the lower court later found King guilty of first-degree rape and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Last April Ireland was stunned when the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled against a key provision of the law. "We saw a carefully crafted collection statute," she said, " that closely matches similar laws in 27 other states."

But opponents of the law say it allows officials to run rough shod over the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable search and seizure.

Michael Risher, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, points out that before King was ever linked to the 2003 rape he was in jail for assault. The prosecutors could have waited for a conviction in the assault case which carries a penalty of up to ten years--before taking his DNA.

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Arrestee DNA and Rape: One Prosecutor's Story at Supreme Court

Little Mix - DNA Tour - 21st February 2013
Part 1 Not great quality and sorry for my singing! Second part of the song to follow 🙂

By: KimmiWilliams

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Little Mix - DNA Tour - 21st February 2013 - Video