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In 2012, a variety of research papers associated with the ENCODE project (Encyclopedia Of DNA Elements) described how the human genome was pervasively copied—transcribed—into an amazing array of functional RNA molecules that regulate how genes and the genome function.1 Much of the pervasive transcription is based on long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that have the same control features as protein-coding genes but with other functions.2 A large group of lncRNAs stay in the cell’s nucleus, where some directly regulate how genes are expressed while others help modify chromosome structure. Some lncRNAs are exported into the cell’s cytoplasm to regulate the production...

After Osama Bin Ladin was killed, someone on our side released the name of the doctor who, with DNA tests verified that OBL was in the compound. Who did it and why?

It is one of the most unusual evolutionary ideas ever proposed: humans are amphibious apes who lost their fur, started to walk upright and developed big brains because they took to living the good life by the water’s edge. This is the aquatic ape theory and although treated with derision by some academics over the past 50 years, it is still backed by a small, but committed group of scientists. From next Wednesday through Friday, they will hold a major London conference when several speakers, including British naturalist and broadcaster, David Attenborough, will voice support for the theory. “Humans are...

Drivers in a southeastern Pennsylvania town were forced off a local street and into a parking lot, so a federal contractor – aided by local police --could quiz them about their road habits and ask for a cheek swab, in a replay of an incident last month in Texas. The checkpoint, in downtown Reading, was one of several conducted by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which was hired by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Although the questioning and cheek swab were voluntary, local residents said they were...

A private firm with a federal contract - and backed up by city police - forced motorists off Laurel Street and into a private parking lot Friday to question them about their driving habits and ask for a swab of their mouth. "I feel this incident is a gross abuse of power on many levels," Reading resident Ricardo Nieves, one of those stopped, told City Council Monday. He said federal and local tax dollars were being used to stop innocent people without probable cause, and allow a private company to hire uniformed police to force citizens to listen to their...

U.S. geneticists say a second code hiding within DNA changes how scientists read its instructions and interpret mutations to make sense of health and disease. Since the genetic code was deciphered in the 1960s, scientists have assumed it was used exclusively to write information about proteins, but University of Washington scientists say they've discovered genomes use the genetic code to write two separate "languages." One, long understood, describes how proteins are made, while the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden...

Scientists have discovered a second code hiding within DNA. This second code contains information that changes how scientists read the instructions contained in DNA and interpret mutations to make sense of health and disease. UW scientists were stunned to discover that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden for so long. The genetic code uses a 64-letter alphabet called codons. The UW team...

Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of neatly clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries. In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that they had retrieved ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years. The fossil, a thigh bone found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals. But its DNA tells a very different story. It most closely resembles DNA from an enigmatic lineage of humans known as Denisovans....

Full Title is "Holiday Celebration: Robot Turtles, Poop-Snooping DNA Detectives" “Robot Turtle Will Help Underwater Archeologists Inspect Shipwrecks,” for example, has some obviously worthwhile things to point out about the development of autonomous unmanned underwater vehicles to explore dangerous environments more cheaply and safely than humans can manage. The saving grace for this report from The Robot Safari in the London Science Museum, however, is the effort the announcement goes to – and trouble the designers obviously did as well – to not only build an autonomous underwater vehicle that swims like a turtle, but justify having done so (paddle-like...

The A3/02 strain combines the two most common HIV strains in Guinea-Bissau and develops into AIDS within five years, up to two-and-a-half years faster than either of its parent strains, said Angelica Palm, one of the scientists behind the study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. This type of strain, a recombinant, appears when a person becomes infected by two different strains, allowing DNA to fuse and create a new one.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Humans lived for thousands of years in small, isolated populations and resulting inbreeding shaped the course of human evolution, a U.S. researcher says. Research suggests the severe inbreeding may have created many health problems and the small populations were likely a barrier to the development of complex culture and technologies, NewScientist.com reported Thursday. David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston -- who has sequenced the genome of Neanderthals and that of another extinct human, the Denisovans -- said both species were severely inbred due to small populations. "Archaic populations had low genetic diversity,...

The frozen remains of a horse more than half a million years old have reluctantly given up their genetic secrets, providing scientists with the oldest DNA ever sequenced. The horse was discovered in 2003 in the ancient permafrost of Canada’s west-central Yukon Territory, not far from the Alaskan border.And although the animal was dated to between 560,000 and 780,000 years old, an international team of researchers was able to use a new combination of techniques to decipher its genetic code. Among the team’s findings is that the genus Equus — which includes all horses, donkeys, and zebras — dates back...

ISON is in an Outburst Now. The Hidden Code This is the quote from the 12 minute 35 second video that BPEarthWatch posted on YouTube.com:"God talks to our DNA." This quote comes from the 3 minute 14 second to the 3 minute 18 seconds part of that video.BPEarthWatch has a lot of information in this video and information that, I believe, should be discussed. He took 200 or 300 pages of information and tried to boil it down to this video and he's talking about ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) Waves and the Earth's Resonance Frequency of 7.8 Hz or...

Fudan University in Shanghai is to study China's historical figures such as Confucius and the early emperors through modern DNA technology, Beijing Times reports. The studies follow the latest findings published on Monday on Cao Cao, a warlord who lived nearly 2,000 years ago in final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It debunked rumors that Cao's father Cao Song was fostered by comparing the DNA of Cao's living descendents and that found in the teeth of Cao's grandfather. Han Sheng from Fudan University, who led the Cao Cao research, says it is a breakthrough in the fields of both...

SANTA FE—Where did the first Americans come from? Most researchers agree that Paleoamericans moved across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia sometime before 15,000 years ago, suggesting roots in East Asia. But just where the source populations arose has long been a mystery. Now comes a surprising twist, from the complete nuclear genome of a Siberian boy who died 24,000 years ago—the oldest complete genome of a modern human sequenced to date. His DNA shows close ties to those of today's Native Americans. Yet he apparently descended not from East Asians, but from people who had lived in Europe or...

Neanderthal peoples' Asian cousins occupied the islands of our nearest neighbours and possibly Australia itself, scientists believe. Writing today in the journal Science, Adelaide University archaeologist Alan Cooper argues that the Denisovans – Neanderthal-like relatives of ancient humans – crossed Wallace’s Line, one of the world’s most formidable marine barriers, more than 100,000 years ago. Having achieved this feat, it would be “amazing” if they had not made what was then an easy crossing to Australia. “If you cross Wallace’s Line you’ve done all the hard work,” Professor Cooper told The Australian. The Denisovans were unknown before a finger bone...

No next-of-kin was around to claim the frozen 5,300-year-old body of Ötzi the Iceman when it was found in the Italian Alps in 1991, but researchers now report that there are at least 19 genetic relatives of Ötzi living in Austria's Tyrol region. "These men and the 'Iceman' had the same ancestors," Walther Parson, a researcher at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, told the Austrian Press Agency last week. The relatives may not know they're related, however. The Austrian researchers haven't told them. They found the 19 genetic matches by looking through the DNA records of 3,700 Austrian...

"None of the dynamic changes we observed could have been inferred from modern-day genetic data alone, highlighting the potential power of combining ancient DNA studies with archaeology to reconstruct human evolutionary history."

Something To Think About As We Head Into a Possible Government Shutdown…Remember this magical moment in American history? Well guess what? That whole thing started during a government shutdown.Monica was working long hours in the White House during the government shutdown of 1995.According to the Washington Post, “the second day of the government shutdown — marked the beginning of her sexual relationship with the President.”The Washington Post goes on to enlighten the reader in sordid detail the manner in which Bill J Clinton (You can just call him BJ) brought shame and degradation to the Office of the Presidency of...

A transgender man is the first in Europe to give birth to a baby after becoming pregnant through a sperm donor. The unidentified man, who was born a woman, delivered the baby boy at home with a midwife in the poor Neukoellin district of Berlin. He insisted on a home birth because he refused to be listed as the mother on any hospital documents - a legal requirement of in Germany. The case in Germany mirrors that of Thomas Beatie in the US, pictured, who has given birth to three children and was the first man to ever give birth...