Category Archives: Transhuman News

Panasonic Develops Chip That Sequences DNA in an Hour
It can take up to a week to sequence DNA but a new chip developed by Panasonic can do it in a fraction of the time.

By: NewsyScience

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Panasonic Develops Chip That Sequences DNA in an Hour - Video

DNA Vergadering 08-04-2013

By: dnasuriname

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DNA Vergadering 08-04-2013 - Video

Ancient DNA Analysis Affirms the Canid from Altai as a Primitive Dog
Shannon O #39;Grady Applied Animal Biology Video Presentation.

By: Shannon O #39;Grady

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Ancient DNA Analysis Affirms the Canid from Altai as a Primitive Dog - Video

DNA Proof of 6" Tall Extraterrestrial: 2013
( HELP get this out on Twitter and Facebook ))) Six inch Tall Alien believed to be 5 to 7 years old was found in the Atacama Desert in Chile a few years ag...

By: goforitrandy

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DNA Proof of 6" Tall Extraterrestrial: 2013 - Video

Whether it's an assault or a relatively minor offense such as destroying a library book, Coloradans convicted of a misdemeanor would have to open wide and say "aaagh," should lawmakers pass a requirement that the state collect from them an oral DNA sample.

In what's billed as an ambitious effort to solve cold cases, exonerate those wrongfully convicted and quell future crimes, a Democratic state lawmaker wants to require that individuals convicted of Class 1, Class 2 or Class 3 misdemeanors must submit a DNA sample to be stored in a statewide database system.

But this effort to expand DNA collection to misdemeanor convictions has raised concerns about privacy issues and the rationale behind such a requirement.

"DNA is the 21st century fingerprint," said Rep. Dan Pabon, a Denver Democrat, who is the sponsor of the legislation that's set to be heard before a House committee Thursday. " We have become so sophisticated in our technology and science, we can without a shadow of a doubt link someone physically to a crime."

Already in Colorado, individuals arrested on a felony charge and some misdemeanors involving unlawful sexual conduct are required to provide the state with a DNA sample. And those convicted of a misdemeanor under the proposed legislation would have to pay a $128 fee to cover the costs of the sample.

Late Wednesday afternoon, after The Denver Post reported about Pabon's bill online, the sponsor said he would offer an amendment to the measure that would only require Class 1 misdemeanors be swabbed.

However, though Pabon is targeting most misdemeanor offenses, his legislation does not require those convicted of misdemeanor traffic offenses such as DUIs to submit oral samples.

"We don't have the statistics that demonstrate just because you're drinking and driving that you have a propensity to commit more serious crimes," Pabon said. "With respect to theft crimes, assault crimes, those involving the objectification of a person ... those types of crimes indicate that you're going to commit more serious crimes."

Denise Maes, public policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said it's a false assumption to conclude that any person who commits a low-level misdemeanor will commit more serious crimes in the future.

"This encroaches on an individual's privacy," said Maes, who will offer testimony on Thursday in opposition to the bill. "Further, listen carefully to the rationale supporting this bill: 'Collecting DNA helps solve crime.' There is no end to this mission. One may facetiously say 'just chip us at birth,' but in reality this is precisely where the rationale of the proponents naturally leads us to."

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Misdemeanor convictions in Colorado could call for DNA swab

NEW YORK (AP) A letter that scientist Francis Crick wrote to his son about his Nobel Prize-winning DNA discovery was sold to anonymous buyer at a New York City auction on Wednesday for a record-breaking $5.3 million.

The price, which far exceeded the $1 million pre-sale estimate, topped $6 million when the commission is included, according to Christie's. The price was a record for a letter sold at auction, Christies said, eclipsing an Abraham Lincoln letter that sold in April 2008 for $3.4 million including commission.

On Thursday, the molecular biologists 1962 Nobel Prize medal in physiology or medicine will be offered by Heritage Auctions, which estimates it could fetch over $500,000.

The items are among a dozen artifacts Cricks heirs are selling to benefit scientific research.

In the March 19, 1953, handwritten letter to his 12-year-old son, Michael, Crick describes his discovery of the structure of DNA as something beautiful. The note tells his son how he and James Watson found the copying mechanism by which life comes from life. It includes a simple sketch of DNAs double helix structure, which Crick concedes he cant draw very well.

The seven-page letter, written to his son in boarding school, concludes: Read this carefully so that you will understand it. When you come home we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy.

Crick, who died in 2004 at age 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins. He spent the latter decades of his career doing brain research at the Salk Institute, where he became a professor in 1977.

Michael Cricks daughter Kindra said the family decided to sell the medal and other items because they had been in storage for 50 years, first locked up in a room of her grandfathers La Jolla, Calif., home and later in a safe deposit box.

They chose to sell them now because it coincides with the 60th anniversary of the historic discovery and 50 years since he received the award, she said.

Half the proceeds from the Christies sale will benefit the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, the granddaughter said. Twenty percent of the proceeds from the Heritage Auctions sale will go to the new Francis Crick Institute in London, a medical research institute slated to open in 2015.

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DNA discoverer's letter sells for more than $5M