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Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Wednesday prompted by a decade-long CBS News California investigation into California's newborn genetic biobank. We still won't know who is using your DNA for research, or what the research is for, but the California Department of Public Health must now reveal the number of newborn DNA samples that California is storing and the number of DNA samples that the state sells to researchers each year. In response to our decade-long investigation, lawmakers introduced several bills this year that were intended to shed light on how the state is amassing and using California's newborn DNA...

The abduction of a six year-old boy from Oakland in 1951 has been solved 73 years on - and incredibly, there's a happy ending. Luis Armando Albino has been found safe and well thanks to a dedicated niece who never gave up hope of tracking down her long-lost relative. Albino, who's now 79, was abducted by a woman on February 21, 1951 from a park in West Oakland where he had been playing alongside his older brother, Roger, who was ten. The woman got his attention and lured him away by tricking him, promising that she would buy him candy....

The pioneering DNA testing firm 23andMe is in turmoil. Seven independent members of the company’s eight-person board resigned Tuesday, concluding that despite co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki’s expressed intention to take the company private, “no such proposal is forthcoming.” They also cited a difference on the “strategic direction” of the company. 23andMe’s revenue has shriveled over the past year and its share price has sunk to about 30 cents, jeopardizing its ability to remain listed on the Nasdaq index. … 23andMe has amassed a vast trove of DNA from its popular test kits and pioneered using genetic information to determine...

The remains of a man found in the Snake River near the Grande Ronde River 25 miles south of Lewiston back in 1982 have been identified. The Nez Perce County Sheriff's Office responded to the scene in June of 1982. The Nez Perce County Coroner estimated that the man was between 18 and 22 years old, stood 5’11” tall, and weighed between 145 and 160 pounds. The man was never identified and was referred to as 'Snake River John Doe'. By 2008 the case was entered into the National Missing & Unidentified Persons System. A sketch was conducted of the...

A Missouri man wanted in connection with the 1993 murder of an Indianapolis woman has been arrested and charged with her death over 30 years after the case was opened. Dana Jermaine Shepherd, 52, is charged with two counts of murder and one count of rape in connection with the 1993 death of Carmen Hope Van Huss. Shepherd was arrested in Boone County, Missouri, on Friday, Aug. 30. He is charged in Marion County, Indiana. Shepherd reportedly works for the University of Missouri as a custodian. On March 24, 1993, 19-year-old Carmen Hope Van Huss was found raped and murdered...

Researchers have discovered a "spatial grammar" in DNA that redefines the role of transcription factors in gene regulation, influencing our understanding of genetic variations and disease.A recently uncovered code within DNA, referred to as "spatial grammar," may unlock the secret to how gene activity is encoded in the human genome.This breakthrough finding, identified by researchers at Washington State University and the University of California, San Diego and published in Nature, revealed a long-postulated hidden spatial grammar embedded in DNA. The research could reshape scientists' understanding of gene regulation and how genetic variations may influence gene expression in development or disease...Transcription...

On January 9, 1980, 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe enrolled at the University of Texas Austin School of Nursing. On the same day, at about 10 p.m., she was kidnapped about one block from her home while walking to a friend’s house after having her house sprayed for bugs. A witness to the kidnapping watched as a car stopped and the driver exited grabbing Susan in a ''bear hug,'' placed a coat over her head, and forced her into the car. The witness also said that the passenger door opened, but he did not see what the passenger did during the...

In a bombshell revelation, whistleblowers within Homeland Security have accused the agency of actively retaliating against them for exposing a systemic failure to comply with a federal DNA collection law. The whistleblowers have risked their careers to reveal that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of DHS, has systematically failed to collect the DNA of illegal immigrants as mandated by the DNA Fingerprint Act. This law, passed in 2005 with bipartisan support, mandates the collection of DNA samples from non-U.S. persons detained for immigration violations. This failure has allowed violent criminals to evade detection and commit further crimes...

A 61-year-old professor born in Phoenix, Arizona, believes he is the first person to gain Irish citizenship solely based on the results of a DNA test, the Irish Times reported.John Portmann, an author and professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, took an Ancestry.com test in 2019 at the behest of his adopted sister. Portmann was cared for by nuns in Phoenix before being adopted and grew up not knowing anything about his background.When he received his DNA results, he was shocked to find out he was full-blooded Irish...he couldn't stop thinking about Ireland and about his biological...

More than three months after the widely criticized decision to release the results of a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is exploring a run for the presidency, has apologized to the Cherokee Nation, according to Julie Hubbard, a spokesperson with the Cherokee Nation.

Hawaii island police Chief Ben Moszkowicz said police didn’t have probable cause to arrest a new suspect in the 1991 Dana Ireland murder case before he killed himself last week. The suspect, 57-year-old Albert Lauro Jr., of Hawaiian Paradise Park, was recently confirmed to be the source of semen and other DNA retrieved from Ireland’s body and a T-shirt soaked with Ireland’s blood found near the crime scene. Ireland, a 23-year-old visitor from Virginia, was hit on her bicycle, raped, beaten and left on a fishing trail in Puna on Christmas Eve 1991. She died the next day at Hilo...

The Department of Homeland Security has refused to follow a law mandating it take DNA samples from illegal immigrants taken into custody, which would identify violent criminals and child traffickers, employees told the U.S. Senate this week. Speaking to senators on Tuesday, three former officials presented evidence that DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had blocked their efforts to comply with a 2005 law, then retaliated against them when they sounded the alarm about the lawbreaking. “Given the enormous potential of DNA collection to facility solving crimes, we took our job seriously,” Fred Wynn said. Law enforcement experts...

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced two immigration bills to tackle fake migrant and child trafficking at the southern border while increasing penalties for employers hiring ineligible workers. “Today, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13) introduced a legislative package that aims to combat child trafficking and the hiring of illegal migrants in our country,” Luna said in a press release Friday. The first bill, the Family Reunification Act, will mandate rapid DNA testing for all families detained at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Nazi occupying forces massacred civilians in Crete. Credit: Bundesarchiv, CC BY-SA 3.0 de/Wikipedia Greek scientists have recently identified 18 people who were executed by the Nazis in Crete through DNA analysis. In the Battle of Crete during the World War II occupation of Greece, the German forces faced substantial civilian resistance. The inhabitants of Adele, a prosperous lowland village in the northeastern part of the Rethymnon regional unit, resisted fiercely and had formed an armed resistance group. As a consequence, the German forces surrounded the village on June 2, 1941, and arrested 18 male civilians (including two fathers with...

Scientists hope the study of it and other giant genomes will shed light on species resilience. The New Caledonian fork fern (Tmesipteris oblanceolate) possesses the largest genome yet found. ORIANE HIDALGO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The human genome is made up of 3 billion base pairs of DNA. But that’s nothing compared with the New Caledonian fork fern (Tmesipteris oblanceolate), a leafy, tendrilled plant native to several Pacific islands. Its genome contains an astonishing 160 billion base pairs, making it the largest genome ever discovered, researchers report today in iScience. The finding could help scientists understand how genomes grow so large, and how...

Remains were discovered at a dump site near St. John’s in 2001The man who became known as Conception Bay John Doe after his severed head was found buried in a dump site 23 years ago has been identified by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary as a Cuban who came to Canada on a tourist visa, The Fifth Estate has learned. Temistocle Casas was identified through genetic genealogy that led investigators to his first cousin, police said. RNC Const. Greg Davis said he will never forget the moment he learned Casas's name and saw his photo for the first time. "Surreal I...

When a trusting customer purchases a kit from 23andMe, spits in their tube, and mails it back, they effortlessly provide 23andMe with genetic data on dozens and dozens of their traits. If the intended goal is to discover a family ancestry line, or if they are a candidate for ailments like breast or prostate cancer and other disease-causing variants, then 23andMe may seem like a valuable tool. However, by consenting to let 23andMe run tests, customers agree to user terms set by the company. (snip) As the partnership between 23andMe and GSK came to life, besides publicly disclosed deals with...

The elongated skulls of Paracas in Peru caused a stir in 2014 when a geneticist that carried out preliminary DNA testing reported that they have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far”. A second round of DNA testing was completed in 2016 and the results almost as controversial – the skulls tested, which date back as far as 2,000 years, were shown to have European and Middle Eastern Origin. It was claimed these surprising results would change the known history about how the Americas were populated. But did they? Paracas is a desert...

Thomas Gingeras did not intend to upend basic ideas about how the human body works. In 2012 the geneticist, now at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York State, was one of a few hundred colleagues who were simply trying to put together a compendium of human DNA functions. Their ­project was called ENCODE, for the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements. About a decade earlier almost all of the three billion DNA building blocks that make up the human genome had been identified. Gingeras and the other ENCODE scientists were trying to figure out what all that DNA did. The assumption...

Advances in biotechnology are transforming food production with fungi playing a pivotal role. Research led by Vayu Hill-Maini utilizes genetic engineering to enhance fungi’s natural properties, creating nutritious and sustainable meat alternatives. This approach not only opens new avenues in food science but also integrates sophisticated culinary applications. A gene-edited fungal culture from Vayu Hill-Maini’s research, seen on a dinner plate. Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab Hacking the genome of fungi for smart foods of the future. With animal-free dairy products and convincing vegetarian meat substitutes already on the market, it’s easy to see how biotechnology can change the food industry....