Category Archives: Transhuman News

Francis Collins, Junk DNA, and Chromosomal Fusion (4) 6-29-2013 by Paul Giem
The book "Science and Human Origins" by Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe, and Casey Luskin (published by Discovery Institute Press) is reviewed. In the fourth chapter...

By: ItIsAboutGod

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Francis Collins, Junk DNA, and Chromosomal Fusion (4) 6-29-2013 by Paul Giem - Video

Artist stirs privacy debate with portraits from DNA
July 1 - DNA extracted from cigarette butts and bubble gum found on the streets of Brooklyn is being used by artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg to create realistic portraits of anonymous New Yorkers....

By: ReutersVideo

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Artist stirs privacy debate with portraits from DNA - Video

Namungoona tragedy: DNA tests could take 3 to 5 days
Many of those killed in the fuel tank fire were burnt beyond recognition.Hope in identifying them lies in carrying out a DNA test.These tests allow an individual to determine with accuracy...

By: ntvuganda

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Namungoona tragedy: DNA tests could take 3 to 5 days - Video

DNA RapidFire - Black Ops II Game Clip
Game Clip.

By: 360CODBlackOps2

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DNA RapidFire - Black Ops II Game Clip - Video

Trayvon Martin #39;s DNA Not on Zimmerman #39;s Gun
George Zimmerman Gun, George Zimmerman Live Blog, George Zimmerman Trial Live, Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, George Zimmerman Case, George Zimmerman Tr...

By: NewsOfWorldToday

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Trayvon Martin's DNA Not on Zimmerman's Gun - Video

NEW YORK, July 6 (UPI) -- The DNA of a New York firefighter has been identified in debris removed from the World Trade Center, the medical examiner's office said.

Advances in technology made it possible to identify Lt. Jeffrey Walz, the New York Post reported Saturday. Walz, who was promoted to lieutenant after his death, was killed in the collapse of Tower One on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York City Medical Examiner's Office, said 1,116 people of the 2,753 who died when terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers have not been identified.

Walz, 37, the son of a firefighter, grew up on Staten Island and graduated from Pratt Institute with a degree in electrical engineering, the Staten Island Advance said.

He was an electrical engineer in the Navy for five years before joining the Fire Department.

He was living in Westchester County when he died.

"My family always felt at some point we would get a phone call," Rani Walz, his wife, told the Post. "I wasn't so sure. This has reopened old wounds."

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DNA of firefighter killed on 9/11 identified in debris

Anthropologists said this week that DNA from ancient bones from northern British Columbia demonstrates a direct link between long-ago inhabitants and Native American descendants who live in the region today.

Assembling complete mitochondrial DNA genomes from four ancient individuals and three modern ones, the team found that living people had the exact same sequences found in bones that were thousands of years old proving definitively, they said, that the native communities had been in the region a very, very, very long time.

Were showing theres a long-term affinity with the present-day First Nations population, going back 5,000 years, said Jerome Cybulski, former curator of physical anthropology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec, and coauthor of a paper describing the research that was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.

To reveal the genetic ties, anthropologist Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues looked at mitochondrial DNA, which helps direct how the cellular powerhouses called mitochondria generate energy in the body. Mitochondrial DNA, unlike the so-called nuclear DNA that carries every organisms genetic blueprint, is passed down directly from mothers to offspring, without any mixing with DNA from the father.

Geneticists have used mitochondrial DNA to probe ancient bloodlines for decades, usually concentrating on a small segment of the DNA called HVS1 to determine whether individuals are related. For this study, Malhi and his colleagues also started off by concentrating on such short segments, in both ancient and modern mitochondrial DNA samples. Finding striking similarities between a few of the ancient and living people in those short sequences, they then went on to sequence the entire mitochondrial genomes 16,500 DNA letter pairs apiece of the individuals.

They found that the most ancient bones, at around 6,000 years old, shared a genetic lineage with another, previously studied ancient person who was 2,500 years old, and who could be linked to a living person. The three living people Malhis team sequenced were all shown to share their genetic lineage with an individual who lived more than 5,000 years ago.

Such ties might be reflected in the oral histories of the native people, Malhi said. For instance, some oral histories describe ancient relationships between internal groups in the regions, involving tales of movement and intermarriage between communities. Malhi said such relationships might be apparent in the ancient and modern genetic record.

Being able to look at the entire mitochondrial genome and not just a short portion of it added confidence that the connections are real, he said.

Were finding links back to 5,000 years for mitogenomes that are fairly specific to the region, Malhi said. If you only looked at HVS1, we could have been able to possibly think there was a connection, but it would have been less definitive.

We can now understand better the relationship of ancient lineages to modern lineages, said Jennifer Raff, an anthropological geneticist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. who was not involved in the research. We want to know how populations relate to each other.

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Ancient bones' DNA draws a direct line to people living today