Category Archives: Transhuman News

By Joel Schipper, Reporter Last Updated: Tuesday, April 09, 2013, 10:29 PM ORMOND BEACH --

Police arrested a man Monday for a violent sexual crime committed more than a decade ago.

Carl Perdew, 43, is facing felony charges of sexual battery and robbery for the 2002 crime.The DNA test taken from an arrest last August led investigators to Perdew.

A woman says she was leaving a Daytona Beach bar and asked a man to use a phone to call for a ride home.

While the two were walking along some nearby railroad tracks, police say a second man approached. The two men then hit her on the head, robbed her and raped her.

Police say the woman got to a gas station and told officers, but there was no break in the case until last August.

Police say Carl Perdew was arrested for soliciting a prostitute. The DNA swab taken from Perdew was entered into the FDLE crime lab database. That's how investigators discovered the match.

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DNA leads to Ormond Beach rape arrest

Christie's

Francis Crick sketched this diagram of the DNA double-helix molecule in a 1953 letter to his son, Michael. "The model looks much nicer than this," the elder Crick wrote.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

The descendants of Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA's double helix, are likely to receive a seven-figure sum from this week's sales of the late researcher's Nobel Prize and a handwritten letter describing the structure of the DNA molecule but the geneticists who are carrying on Crick's legacy will win a dividend as well.

"We'll probably be giving more money to the Francis Crick Institute than the prize was worth when he got it," mused Michael Crick, the Nobel-winner's eldest child and the recipient of that historic letter back in 1953.

The sales have been timed to take advantage of the 60th anniversary of the double-helix discovery, which was detailed by Crick and American biologist James Watson in a paper published by the journal Nature on April 25, 1953. Their findings opened the way to deciphering the molecular codes that control all of life's processes. The paper's publication date is now celebrated every year as "DNA Day."

Double helix, double sale Crick's legacy is the focus of two million-dollar sales scheduled in New York this week: On Wednesday, Michael Crick's lettergoes on the auction block at Christie's. His father sent it to the 12-year-old at his boarding school in March 1953 just after the researchers worked out the structure of DNA's long, double-helix molecule, but before the Nature paper's publication. "My dear Michael," the letter began, "Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery."

The seven-page letter goes on to lay out the chemical structure of "des-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid ... called D.N.A. for short." The elder Crick even sketched out the base pairs connecting the molecule's twisted spines.

"As far as we know, it's the first written description of how life comes from life," Michael Crick, now 72, told NBC News.

The letter has been valued at $1 million to $2 million. Michael Crick and his wife, Barbara, will receive half of the proceeds. The other half will go to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, where Francis Crick worked up to the time of his deathin 2004 at the age of 88.

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DNA pioneer's Nobel for sale

LONDON, April 9 (UPI) -- A new DNA database of all the rhinoceros horn in Britain is being created in an attempt to stem the illegal theft and trade in the horns, officials said.

British museums and other institutions holding rhino horns have been asked to provide samples as the National Wildlife Crime Unit creates its DNA database, the BBC reported Tuesday.

"The illegal trade in endangered species is one of our six wildlife crime priorities and, within that, the number one issue for us is the illegal trade in rhino horn," unit head Nevin Hunter said.

Poaching of rhinos and the illegal trade in their horns is being driven by high prices paid in China and Vietnam where the horns are considered a cure for many human maladies.

Stealing antique rhino horn kept in British museums and collections can bring similar profits with much lower risks than poaching, officials said.

"Thieves fleeing from a county museum are unlikely to get shot," a curator at one British museum told the BBC.

At least 20 criminal incidents involving rhino horn have been reported in Britain in the last two years, authorities said, involving organized crime at a high level.

"They know how to obtain the horn and they know how to dispose of it -- you can't just sell it on eBay," wildlife crime officer Andy Long said.

The DNA database will deter thieves and enable officers to secure more convictions, authorities said.

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DNA database to fight rhino horn theft

9 April 2013 Last updated at 00:05 ET By Tom Heap BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth

A new DNA database is being set up to hold genetic information on all the rhinoceros horn in the UK in an attempt to stop its theft and trade.

It's probably not every day that a museum will get a couple of drill bits in the post accompanied by a polite request to bore a hole in one of their highly valuable exhibits.

But those holding rhino horn can expect just such a package in the next few months as the National Wildlife Crime Unit roles out its database.

"The illegal trade in endangered species is one of our six wildlife crime priorities and, within that, the number one issue for us is the illegal trade in rhino horn," says unit head Det Insp Nevin Hunter.

In Africa, white rhino numbers are rising.

But despite this, a rapid rise in the incidence of hunting means that, if present trends continue, it won't be long before the population begins to dwindle.

Poachers are driven by the high prices paid in China and Vietnam for rhino horn - strongly, but wrongly, believed to have powerful medicinal properties.

Stealing antique rhino horn kept in the UK can deliver similar profits with much lower risks.

If we want to make inroads into the illegal trade in endangered species, DNA will certainly be the key tool to do that

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Rhino horn DNA database introduced