Category Archives: Transhuman News

The Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees, left, leads a St. James the Great Episcopal Church service inside a community room at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

The Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees leads a St. James the Great Episcopal Church service inside a community room at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Lissa Schairer, right, asks a question during a Q and A regarding DNA testing to determine racial background at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Genealogist Colleen Greene answers questions regarding DNA testing to determine racial background at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

The Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees greets parishioners at the end of church service at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Genealogist Colleen Greene answers questions regarding DNA testing to determine racial background at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Genealogist Colleen Greene speaks about DNA testing to determine racial background at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Genealogist Colleen Greene speaks about DNA testing to determine racial background at the Newport Beach City Hall on Sunday morning, June 4, 2017. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Lissa Schairer says shed rather be white in America because its easier.

The Newport Beach residents sister, who lives in Maryland, adopted two children from Haiti. Schairer says her black niece, a teenager, was recently detained by a police officer on a sidewalk as she was waiting for her mother to pick her up from a mall outing with friends.

The officer let her go only after my sister, who is white, came and vouched for my niece, she said. White privilege is real and Ive seen it in my own family.

Schairer is one of the members of St. James the Great Episcopal Church an overwhelmingly Caucasian congregation in Newport Beach who participated in a Race Project spearheaded by the pastor, the Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees.

It wasnt just about watching movies such as Moonlight, Fences or Im Not Your Negro.They wanted it to be more than that, Voorhees said.

So in May, several of them, including Schairer, took a trip to The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. They also took DNA tests to learn more about their own race and ethnicity.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, a group of church members met with Colleen Greene, genealogist and academic librarian at Cal State Fullerton, who helped them make sense of their test results.

For the purpose of the project, church members took what is known as an autosomal DNA test, which tests DNA from the nucleus of the cell to trace all ancestral lines going back up to about 1,000 years, to provide a percentage breakdown of ethnicities and world regions from where ones ancestors might have come. The test also provides a list of other people who might share common ancestors within the past six generations.

Greene said the tests are pretty accurate.

The only area where they may not be as accurate is in determining the geographic region the ancestors may have come from because it doesnt take migration into account, she said.

Greene said she was intrigued by the church groups eagerness to take the DNA test.

This is something thats extremely rare for a church to do, she said.

Voorhees agreed its not commonly done. But, she said, her congregation wanted to venture into this uncharted territory to better understand how race and ethnicity help shape identities and sensibilities.

We asked ourselves how we could do something as a community, Voorhees said. How do we expose ourselves to what is going on around us in terms of racial tension?

The DNA test results didnt shock members, but there were a few surprises.

Schairers test showed she was mostly of European descent, but that some of her ancestors may have come from the Iberian Peninsula, which encompasses Spain and Portugal.

And she wasnt the only one who came away with unexpected information.

Megan Doherty of Irvine said she found out from her DNA test that she wasnt as Irish as she had thought. The test indicated she was mostly Ulster Irish, from the Ulster province north of Ireland.

Voorhees, herself, was a little surprised when she found out shewas more than 85 percent English and 8 percent Middle Eastern.

My family has always identified itself as German, she said. So, that was interesting.

Greene said it is common for most American families to identify with a certain ethnicity or country. But their DNA may tell a different story.

You inherit differentpieces of your DNA, she said. While you might know for a fact that one of your ancestors was English or German, you may have none of that in you.

David Stockmans test results showed DNA that was mostly European, but the Newport Beach resident said he has always empathized with African-Americans because he lived in Washington, D.C., grew up in Detroit and even lived through a race riot there.

Its heartbreaking that the issue of race is tearing our country apart, he said.

Voorhees said the churchs Race Project was in part a response to several fatal police shootings around the country and the killing of police officers in Dallas, which brought the issue of race relations to the fore.

Schairer said what the DNA test and the project taught her is that human beings have more in common than they realize.

Our genes are 99.5 percent the same the difference is only in that 0.5 percent, she said. I can see how interconnected we all are. So all these tensions and all this hatred it just doesnt make any sense.

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Newport Beach church members test their DNA as part of 'Race Project' - OCRegister

You've probably heard how companies like Ancestry.com or 23-and-me can use your DNA to tell you where you came from. Now for the first time in our area, police are using similar technology to tell us what a suspect might look like.

Scott Broom, WUSA 5:57 PM. EDT June 12, 2017

GAITHERSBURG, MD (WUSA9) - For the first time, police in the D.C. area are turning to a new DNA analytic system that helps them predict who a suspect may be.

"DNA was considered to be just a fingerprint for a very long time," said EllenGraytakofParabonNanolabs, the Northern Virginia-based company that is offering DNA analytics to investigators nationwide. "What this can do is actually tell those investigators something they couldn't have known."

Montgomery County Police are hoping the technology will help them solve the 1992 murder ofJamesEssel, who was the operator of the Sugarloaf Mountain Market in Comas before he was stabbed to death in the store.

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For years detectives have had the description of a possible suspect vehicle, but had no idea what the person driving might have looked like.

Scientists used DNA collected from the scene to create a composite of who the person might be.

In the case of theEssenmurder, the DNA shows the suspect is likely to be a Latino man with a medium dark skin color, brown eyes, and black hair. The technology also predicts key features of the suspect's facial structure.

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In concept, the technology is similar to commercial DNA analysis performed by companies like Ancestry.com or23andMethat help customers learn more about their heritage and health backgrounds. However theParabonsystem provides much more detailed analysis, including predictions about facial features and shape.

2017 WUSA-TV

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New DNA analysis now predicts who killer might be - W*USA 9

BBC News

Mum Danielle Morris who faked DNA paternity test jailed BBC News A woman who faked a paternity test to fool an ex-partner into believing he was her baby's father has been jailed. Danielle Morris, from Seaforth, Merseyside, initially told Jamie Somers in May 2014 that he was not the father, but later changed her story. Woman who faked DNA paternity test to trick ex-lover into believing he was baby's father jailed for 12 monthsMirror.co.uk all 2 news articles »

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Mum Danielle Morris who faked DNA paternity test jailed - BBC News

Pacific Standard

Can the Law Enforcement's DNA Database Tell Police Your Medical Information? Pacific Standard Despite what procedural dramas might lead you to believe, the DNA that police collect at crime scenes can't tell you anything about the characteristics of the person who left it behind. If police have a database of suspects' DNA, then they can match a ...

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Can the Law Enforcement's DNA Database Tell Police Your Medical Information? - Pacific Standard

Published: Mon, June 12, 2017 @ 12:00 a.m.

By ALISSA WIDMAN NEESE

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium polar bear cubs arent just cute and cuddly.

Theyre also helping the federal government fight crimes against their wild relatives in the Arctic, thanks to advancements in forensic science and DNA testing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Forensic Laboratory in Oregon often relies on zoos to maintain its database of DNA samples from protected animal species. But when the Columbus Zoo sent DNA from its six polar bears to the lab in March, it came with payoffs for both parties including a confirmation of whether the zoos three newest cubs are male or female.

The labs scientists analyze evidence during investigations of violations of federal wildlife protection laws, including poaching, illegal trading of animals, theft of rare plants and creating products from endangered species.

For example, the lab could use DNA to identify a decaying carcass as a protected animal or confirm that a business is selling items made with bald eagle feathers or elephant ivory.

Scientists are trying to perfect a new, more accurate DNA test for bears and benefited from the Columbus Zoos controlled samples from a known family of animals. The reference data illustrate how genetic patterns change in a population over time. It could someday pin down criminals who harm polar bears, which are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, on which the bears are listed as threatened.

Only an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears are living in the wild, and there are just 40 or so bears in 27 U.S. zoos that are members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Our polar bear database is fairly small, so the more samples we can get, the better, senior forensic scientist Mary Burnham Curtis said.

The zoo, meanwhile, was seeking a noninvasive way to determine the sexes of its baby bears. Because the 6-month-old animals are being raised by their mothers and not hand-reared by zookeepers, staffers would have had to put them under anesthesia to examine their genitals and make an official determination.

That seemed like an unnecessary risk for something that was just curiosity, not critical, said Randy Junge, the zoos vice president of animal health.

Luckily, we were able to help each other out.

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DNA from zoo's polar bears used in fight against poaching - Youngstown Vindicator