Category Archives: Transhuman News

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

BLOOMINGTON The statesapproval to use all of a DNA samplefor testing without prior notice to the defendants lawyer does not preclude the state from using the evidence at his sexual abuse trial, a judge ruled Friday in denying a motion to suppress the state lab results.

Defense lawyer Jennifer Patton argued that Wichmanns constitutional rights were violated because the DNA material is not available for testing by an expert hired by the defense. The material was collected from the inside of a condom, said Patton.

Patton cited an email exchanged between Assistant States Attorney Jacob Harlow and an Illinois State Police forensic scientist in January on the need to use all of the sample for testing.

In his email, Harlow approved of "consumption" of the sample, adding that this case hinges on the DNA findings.

Harlow told Judge Scott Drazewski that state Illinois Supreme Court evidence rules do not require the state to seek the courts permission to consume a DNA sample.

In the Wichmann case, additional DNA material is available from twoother samples and may be tested by the defense, said Harlow.

In his ruling, Drazewski characterized the DNA sample from the inside of the condom asevidence thats going to have much more persuasive information than the remaining samples.

The scientific methods used to locate and examine DNA profiles require a minimum amount of material, noted the judge, and sometimes the samples must be consumed in that process.

The state did not violate the rules of evidence or discovery, said the judge in his denying the the defense motion.

Patton said the defense will move forward with a review of the lab results by an independent expert.

Wichmann will be back in court on Sept. 15.

Follow Edith Brady-Lunny on Twitter: @pg_blunny

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DNA results allowed in sex abuse trial - Bloomington Pantagraph