Category Archives: Transhuman News

Autographed Phil Hughes Baseball - PSA/DNA
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Autographed Phil Hughes Baseball - PSA/DNA - Video

The Irish Times - Thursday, January 17, 2013

DICK AHLSTROM

ANALYSIS:Advanced genetic technologies are making it increasingly difficult for food producers to misrepresent their products. DNA analysis readily detected the sometimes minute quantities of pig and horse meat found in the burger products tested.

It also points up the challenge faced by bodies such as the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, which commissioned the DNA tests.

It is not feasible to check every meat product that comes into the country and so our supermarket shelves may still be displaying burgers that contain meat other than the expected beef.

DNA fingerprinting

The DNA technology used to test the meat, sometimes referred to as DNA fingerprinting or profiling, was developed by Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester back in 1984. It allowed one DNA profile to be compared directly with another.

Within three years it developed into a service mostly used to prove or disprove paternity.

The huge public scare triggered by so-called mad cow disease and its transmission to humans encouraged the adaptation of the technology to animals.

Trinity College Dublins Prof Patrick Cunningham converted the technology and co-founded DNA profiling company IdentiGEN.

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DNA profiling leaves no room for beefs

In a remarkable act of biological mimicry, researchers in Europe and the United States announced in April that they had created six types of artificial DNAsynthetic genetic material that can encode information just like the real thing. The invention suggests that the earliest life on Earth did not necessarily rely on DNA or its cousin, RNA, since other molecules can also perform the same tricks. The artificial DNA, or XNAs, are simple chemical alternatives to store and propagate genetic information, says team leader Philipp Holliger of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Natural DNA consists of a ladder frame of ring-shaped deoxyribose molecules (which form the backbone of the double helix) and rungs of bases (which spell out the genetic alphabet). To create XNAs, Holliger and his team replaced the deoxyribose with alternative synthetic chemical ring structures such as arabinose or cyclohexene. Like DNA, XNAs can hold genetic information that specifies how to build a protein. And XNAs can evolve: When the researchers subjected billions of unique XNA strands to selective pressure in a test tubein this case binding to a provided target moleculeout came XNA sequences folded up into 3-D structures that could bind.

XNAs may also have medical applications. Short strands of nucleic acids, called aptamers, can target a disease-inducing gene or protein and, for example, block it from activating. Natural aptamers are quickly degraded by the body, but because XNA aptamers are foreign, they will last longerlong enough, Holliger hopes, to have therapeutic value.

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38. DNA Mimic Brewed in Lab

In 1983, Stephen Close was arrested, jailed and expelled from the British army for having sex with a male squad mate.

Three decades later, police tracked him down to the northern England city of Salford and demanded a sample of his DNA.

Close, now 50 and openly gay, said he was shocked.

"I was horrified that after all these years they suddenly decided to bring this up again," Close said in a telephone interview from Salford, 205 miles (330 kilometers) north of London.

While it is not illegal in the U.K. to collect genetic material from adults, Britain's DNA database one of the largest in the world, with some 6 million samples has long been a magnet for controversy. Human rights advocate Peter Tatchell says gay men convicted years ago under Britain's now-defunct gross indecency law may have had their rights violated recently by British police who ordered them to submit their genetic material to the database.

"It is absolutely wrong to lump a consenting, victimless offense like 'gross indecency' with rape and child sex abuse," Tatchell told The Associated Press.

Europe's top human rights court in 2008 struck down a British law that allowed the government to store DNA and fingerprints from people with no criminal record. But in 2011, a new law allowed police to collect DNA from offenders who had been convicted of serious offenses before the DNA database was created in 1995.

Amanda Cooper of the Association of Chief Police Officers' DNA database program said police forces were told that "certain sexual offences, such as gross indecency and buggery, should not have a DNA sample taken on the grounds of a sole conviction."

In Close's case, he was first convicted of a gross indecency charge and later theft.

The "gross indecency" law dates back to 1885, and has been used to persecute thousands of English homosexuals, including playwright Oscar Wilde, who spent two years in prison after a trial in 1895, and World War II code breaker Alan Turing, who committed suicide after being convicted in 1952.

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UK Police Accused of Wrongly Taking DNA of Gay Men

STONY BROOK, NY--(Marketwire - Jan 17, 2013) - Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. ( OTCBB : APDN ), (Twitter: @APDN), a provider of DNA-based anti-counterfeiting technology and product authentication solutions, announced today that Forward Components, Inc. (Forward Components Engineering, or FCE), based in Foothill Ranch, CA, has requested a unique DNA mark from APDN for DNA-marking for FSC 5962 microcircuits in accordance with the mandate issued by the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).The mandate requires use of APDN's SigNature DNA marking on a certain class of microcircuits, FSC 5962.

FCE will be required to undergo an in-house inspection and training prior to receiving the unique DNA mark to determine if they will qualify to mark in-house or will require third party marking initially. Quality control testing is an ongoing requirement to ensure that all parts continue to be marked correctly for as long as FCE marks parts with a unique APDN DNA marker.

FCE is an authorized distributor and assembly/test facility for the military and aerospace hi-rel industries. The company will apply their SigNature DNA Provenance mark to electronic parts which have traceable documentation as well as parts known as non-trace legacy components.The latter, which comprise only about 5% of the business of FCE, are parts which lack traceability documentation, but which are subject to rigorous test and inspection methods at the FCE facility.These parts, sometimes called "obsolete," can be vital to many military applications due to the long life of much military equipment.

FCE owner and President Scott Wilkosz stated, "Forward Components is pleased to offer DNA-marking on their 5962 components as a value-added service.This technology fits well with our core philosophy of strong quality control and 'best-practice' solutions for our hi-rel customers.Outside of DLA, we invite other customers to request DNA-marked parts from us, knowing that they will essentially be procuring an added layer of forensic protection for their supply-chain."

The Provenance mark to be used by FCE is one of two forms of APDN's SigNature DNA mark: the SigNature Authenticity mark, which is intended to authenticate original products manufactured by OCMs, and the SigNature Provenance mark for distributed products that are marked after manufacture.

The majority of materials FCE distributes are fully traceable; however, when a customer, such as DLA, requests an obsolete legacy component that does not have traceability, the on-staff engineering team at FCE screens these parts using test and inspection methods outlined in the recently approved SAE standard AS6081.Only after these parts are subjected to the test and inspection methods, and are shown to meet AS6081 criteria, will FCE then apply their SigNature DNA Provenance mark.

Bob MacDowell, Senior Account Representative at APDN, commented: "This DNA Provenance Mark will be unique to FCE, and is a testimony to their commitment to quality and best practices for the hi-rel component business."

Dr. James A. Hayward, President and CEO of Applied DNA Sciences, stated: "We are pleased to welcome FCE as another partner in the effort to protect the military supply chain and bring additional value to their businesses.As the DLA-mandated program for DNA marking and authentication grows and develops, we continue to widen the options for electronics companies wishing to join the program and gain its benefits."

About Forward Components Engineering

FCE is an authorized distributor and assembly/test facility for the military and aerospace hi-rel industries.With an on-site engineering staff and a technical sales team, Forward is able to utilize first-class quality systems and in-depth product to offer customers solution-based programs, including distribution and logistics services, cable and harness assembly, through-hole board assembly, and military compliant/RFID packaging. FCE offers extensive test capabilities for AC, DC, and functional testing for a wide array of devices in support of current and legacy programs.Parts inspections are compliant with IDEA-STD-1010 and the appropriate MIL-STD-883 standards.FCE is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company and has successfully contracted with various branches of the Armed Forces and Primes in support of the MV22, Blue Force Tracker, F/A-18 and many other vital programs critical to the success of the American Warfighter.For more information please contact us at info@forwardcomponents.com.

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Applied DNA Sciences to Provide Unique DNA Mark to Forward Components, Inc. for DNA-Marking of Microcircuits