Free Republic

IVF clinics may soon use a controversial screening technique to get rid of embryos which are likely to grow up with low IQs. A company in the US offering tests which can pick out 'mental disabilities' – and, in theory, predict intelligence – has confirmed it is in talks with fertility clinics. The news has stoked fears about a rise in designer babies, which could be created by parents wanting to erase undesirable traits from their children. Experts say it is 'repugnant' to think about terminating embryos because they are expected to have lower than average intelligence.

This story came out earlier this week but it was shocking enough that it bears a look. The transgender activist community was all abuzz on Thursday over a letter that had actually been featured in the New York Times a week earlier. Buzzfeed picked it up and ran with it, adding to the celebratory mood. The document in question was an open letter published by a gaggle of 1,600 scientists who are rejecting the anticipated HHS memo defining sex and gender in traditional, scientifically accepted terms for purposes of Title IX questions. What’s truly amazing is the fact that these...

Nowhere on the agenda of the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, being held in San Diego this week, is a topic plaguing many of its members: the recurring appropriation of the field’s research in the name of white supremacy. “Sticking your neck out on political issues is difficult,” said Jennifer Wagner, a bioethicist and president of the group’s social issues committee, who had sought to convene a panel on the racist misuse of genetics and found little traction. But the specter of the field’s ignominious past, which includes support for the American eugenics movement, looms large...

Blah, blah, blah...DNA stuff...~snip (This is in the conclusion) But to say that you are 20 percent Irish, 4 percent Native American or 12 percent Scandinavian is fun, trivial and has very little scientific meaning.

Any doubt that Elizabeth Warren plans to run for President ended Monday when the Massachusetts Senator released a DNA analysis indicating that she probably does have some trace of distant Native American ancestry. The former Harvard professor went so far as to unveil a website and video featuring an analysis by Stanford professor Carlos Bustamante, who said that while Ms. Warren is mainly European she likely has some Native American ancestry “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.” This makes her between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American, which barely spares her the humiliation of not having any after she had...

New Chimp Genome Confirms Creationist Research BY JEFFREY P. TOMKINS, PH.D. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018 The more DNA sequencing technologies improve, the worse it gets for the evolutionary paradigm. Such is the case with the newest version of the chimpanzee genome.

Nikolas Cruz had two mothers: his birth mom, who gave him life, an almond-shaped head and auburn hair — and his adoptive mom, who gave him all the advantages of an upscale, suburban upbringing. His birth mother, Brenda Woodard, was sometimes homeless, and panhandled for money on a highway exit ramp. His adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, stayed home to manage a 4,500-square-foot, five-bedroom house in the suburbs, with a two-car garage and a sprawling yard. A career criminal, Woodard’s 28 arrests include a 2010 charge for beating a companion with a tire iron; she also threatened to burn the friend’s...

LONDON (Reuters) - How much is your DNA worth? As millions of people pay for home tests to check on ancestry or health risks, genetic data is becoming an increasingly valuable resource for drugmakers, triggering a race to create a DNA marketplace. GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK.L) decision to invest $300 million in 23andMe and forge an exclusive drug development deal with the Silicon Valley consumer genetics company crystallizes the value locked up in genetic code. The tie-up is the biggest yet involving home DNA testing, a market dominated by 23andMe and Ancestry.com, which charge under $100 for a saliva-based test, but can...

Scientists today revealed they are 'extremely close' to creating artificial embryos after a huge breakthrough. Researchers used mouse stem cells to produce artificial embryo-like structures capable of 'gastrulation' - a key life event. Gastrulation occurs when embryonic cells self-organise themselves into the correct structure for an embryo to form. The breakthrough offers hope of shedding light on one of the biggest causes of infertility - embryos failing to implant in the womb. Biologists have for years tried to create embryos from stem cells in order to create an unlimited supply that could be used for medical research.

Contrary to reports of mass confusion at the Southwest Border, where the Department of Health and Human Services is under a court order to reunite children with the parents who brought them here illegally, "there is no confusion whatsoever," HHS Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News Thursday morning. Azar said his department is working against a court-imposed deadline to reunite the 11,800 children with the people who are claiming to be their parents. The process includes DNA testing. "Every child is accounted for," Azar said. "We know every child, where they are. We know the record -- the last time...

PARIS (Reuters) - Italy on Saturday said “arrogant” France risked becoming its “No.1 enemy” on migration issues, a day before European leaders convene in Brussels for a hastily arranged meeting on the divisive topic. In answer to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said migration flows toward Europe had reduced compared with a few years ago, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said Macron’s words showed he was out of touch. “Italy indeed faces a migration emergency and it’s partly because France keeps pushing back people at the border. Macron risks making his country Italy’s No.1 enemy on...

Landmark new research that involves analyzing millions of DNA barcodes has debunked much about what we know today about the evolution of species. In a massive genetic study, senior research associate at the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University Mark Stoeckle and University of Basel geneticist David Thaler discovered that virtually 90 percent of all animals on Earth appeared at right around the same time. More specifically, they found out that 9 out of 10 animal species on the planet came to being at the same time as humans did some 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. "This conclusion...

Half of Americans in Gallup's 2018 Values and Beliefs poll say that being gay or lesbian is a trait from birth, easily eclipsing the 30% who believe it is a product of upbringing and environment. This is consistent with findings over the past few years. Another 10% say both explanations play a role, while 4% attribute being gay to something else and 6% are unsure. When Gallup first asked this "nature vs. nurture" question in 1977, a majority of U.S. adults (56%) said being gay or lesbian was due to people's upbringing and environment, and only 13% saw it as...

... The offspring of partying adolescents, specifically those who used THC, may be at increased risk for mental illness and addiction as a result of changes to the epigenome — even if those children are years away from being conceived. The epigenome is a record of molecular imprints of potent experiences, including cannabis exposure, that lead to persistent changes in gene expression and behavior, even across generations. Though the critical studies are only now beginning, many neuroscientists prophesize a social version of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” in which we learn we’ve burdened our heirs only generations hence.

SACRAMENTO - DNA is back in the spotlight, cracking cold cases. But questions are being raised after the state spent decades collecting the DNA of infants without parents realizing it. California has been collecting newborn blood samples since 1983. Many parents were shocked to hear their children’s blood is being stored in a state database, and possibly even sold to outside researchers. Pricking the toes newborns, to test their blood for certain disorders. The remaining blood becomes “property of the state,” and could be shared with outside researchers. “I feel like that’s something that should have been discussed with us,...

Karenna Gore, director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, urged the Catholic Church and other “faith communities” to become climate change activists and preach about taking action on the issue. “I actually think that [preaching is] one of the main things that could actually break through on this issue. One of the ways that we could break through on this issue is if people really start to think deeply on another level about it; on a moral and spiritual level and are moved from a different kind of place to take action, to raise it with...

More than 40 years after the so-called “Golden State Killer” began terrorizing California, raping dozens of women and killing at least 12, authorities announced Wednesday that they had arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo, charging him with capital murder. DeAngelo’s arrest offered a shocking, abrupt development in what had long been one of the most notorious unsolved string of crimes in U.S. history. The gruesome attacks unfolded across California for more than a decade during the 1970s and 1980s, shattering families and frightening communities. Then the crimes stopped, remaining a mystery for a generation, with little sign the case would ever...

It's not just the double helix! For the first time, scientists have identified the existence of a new DNA structure never before seen in living cells. The discovery of what's described as a 'twisted knot' of DNA in living cells confirms our complex genetic code is crafted with more intricate symmetry than just the double helix structure everybody associates with DNA – and the forms these molecular variants take affect how our biology functions. "When most of us think of DNA, we think of the double helix," says antibody therapeutics researcher Daniel Christ from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research...

‘I am worried,” writes Harvard geneticist David Reich in the New York Times, “that well-meaning people who deny the possibility of substantial biological differences among human populations are digging themselves into an indefensible position, one that will not survive the onslaught of science.”Reich was responding to anticipated resistance to his forthcoming book, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. The “well-meaning people” Reich references are those who argue that race is a “social construct,” that there are no significant genetic differences among people of different racial ancestry. Maybe there...

“Scott’s telomeres (endcaps of chromosomes that shorten as one ages) actually became significantly longer in space,” NASA researchers wrote in a statement. The space agency added that Kelly had hundreds of “space genes” activated by the year-long flight which reportedly altered the astronaut’s “immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.” While Scott Kelly’s height and 93 percent of his DNA returned to normal after returning to Earth, NASA confirmed that seven percent of his genes have remained changed and may stay that way. “This is thought to be from the stresses of space travel, which can cause...