Free Republic

Here’s an explanation for Islamic terrorism that’s never proffered: Insanity and Stupidity A never-spoken-about problem with Muslims is their inbreeding as a result of their long and deeply-ingrained practice of marrying first cousins — a practice that has been prohibited in the Judeo-Christian tradition since the days of Moses. More than 7 years ago, the UK’s environment minister Phil Woolas had sounded the alarm about this “very sensitive” issue that is “rarely debated”. Referring to the culture of arranged marriages between cousins in the Muslim immigrant community, Woolas said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is...

New Letters Added to the Genetic Alphabet Scientists hope that new genetic letters, created in the lab, will endow DNA with new powers. Olena Shmahalo/Quanta MagazineThe two new letters are named P and Z, and fit seamlessly into existing DNA. By: Emily SingerJuly 10, 2015 Comments (14) DNA stores our genetic code in an elegant double helix. But some argue that this elegance is overrated. “DNA as a molecule has many things wrong with it,” said Steven Benner, an organic chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida.Nearly 30 years ago, Benner sketched out better versions of both...

Genetic Entropy Points to a Young Creation by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Many creationists believe that the bulk of scientific evidence for a recent creation comes from the fields of geology, physics, and astronomy and that biology and genetics have little to contribute. However, data that confirm a young creation are rapidly emerging from genetic studies performed by both creationist and secular scientists. One of the most important finds in recent years came from modeling the accumulation of mutations (genetic code errors) in the human genome over time using computer simulations. Researchers found that this buildup of mutations can only...

Remember the sci-fi thriller GATTACA? For those who never saw the film and/or eschewed all pop culture in the late 90’s for some reason, it was a popular movie that came out in 1997 about genetically modified human beings. Now some literally genetically modified human babies born that same year are entering their senior year of high school. The first successful transfer of genetic material for this purpose was published in a U.S. medical journal in 1997 and then later cited in a Human Reproduction publication in 2001. Scientists injected 30 embryos in all with a third person’s genetic material....

FULL TITLE: Autism breakthrough as 'genetic signature' in babies as young as a year found; blood test in the works A GENETIC "signature" of autism in babies as young as 12 months has been identified for the first time, an international conference is to be told. A simple blood test is now being developed and may be available in one to two years, Professor Eric Courchesne will tell the Asia Pacific Autism conference in Adelaide today. "This discovery really changes the landscape of our understanding of causes and effective treatments," says the director of the Autism Centre of Excellence at...

Find Your Inner Neanderthal Published by ScottH under Ancestry http://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/find-your-inner-neanderthal/ They had bigger brains and muscles, but for some reason Neanderthals —thick boned humans who thrived for hundreds of thousands of years in Europe and parts of Asia— died out about 30,000 years ago, while we modern humans survived. Why we, Homo sapiens, flourished and our Homo neandertalensis cousins died out is an evolutionary mystery that biologist are trying to unravel. In the last few years, scientists have uncovered clues not just to what the lives of Neanderthals may have been like, but also clues that tell us more about...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration says it approved a genetic test from Roche to help doctors identify patients who can benefit from a lung cancer drug made by Genentech. The diagnostic test is the first approved to detect genetic mutations found in roughly 10 percent of patients with the most prevalent form of lung cancer, known as non-small cell lung cancer. Patients who test positive for the mutation are more likely to respond to Genentech's drug Tarceva as a first-choice treatment, and the FDA expanded the drug's approval for that use in an announcement Tuesday. The drug...

The Aztecs who conquered the city of Xaltocan in ancient Mexico around 1435 may have fundamentally changed the genetic makeup of the people who lived there, new research suggests... Xaltocan was the capital of a pre-Aztec city-state ruled by the Otomi, an indigenous people who lived in Mexico. The period before the Aztec conquest was a tumultuous time for the Otomi, when a century of warfare led to the collapse of their capital city. Colonial records from the 1500s onward told tales of the Otomi fleeing the city en masse in 1395. Those records suggested that the city was abandoned...

China usually holds its military hand very close to the vest--that, or things “mysteriously” leak that it doesn’t (does) want the world to know about--so we’re left to wonder why the People’s Republic has decided to publish this in the journal Advanced Materials Research. Nonetheless, it’s pretty interesting. Chinese navy researchers have plans for a new submarine hunting scheme that uses ship-launched UAVs running genetic algorithms. Genetic algorithms narrow down a range of possibilities to an optimal solution much the way evolution does (at least in a simplified sense)--by weeding out the weaker offspring and mating the best with the...

Researchers at KTH say they have found further proof that the wolf ancestors of today’s domesticated dogs can be traced to southern East Asia — findings that run counter to theories placing the cradle of the canine line in the Middle East.Dr Peter Savolainen, KTH researcher in evolutionary genetics, says a new study released Nov. 23 confirms that an Asian region south of the Yangtze River was the principal and probably sole region where wolves were domesticated by humans. Data on genetics, morphology and behaviour show clearly that dogs are descended from wolves, but there’s never been scientific consensus on...

Here is a huge data dump for anyone interested in human variation. Part of the reason I started the Dodecad Project was to be able to analyze data on my own, rather than having to squint to make sense of a plot, to speculate about what might show up at higher dimensions, or with more clusters, to wonder how the inclusion of additional populations would affect the results, and so on. The following dataset represents the culmination (so far), of my efforts. Number of SNP markers: ~177,000 as in here Populations: 139 Individuals: 2,230 In the RAR file (~11MB) you...

The Insanity VirusSchizophrenia has long been blamed on bad genes or even bad parents. Wrong, says a growing group of psychiatrists. The real culprit, they claim, is a virus that lives entwined in every person's DNA. by Douglas Fox Steven and David Elmore were born identical twins, but their first days in this world could not have been more different. David came home from the hospital after a week. Steven, born four minutes later, stayed behind in the ICU. For a month he hovered near death in an incubator, wracked with fever from what doctors called a dangerous viral infection....

EUREKA! ------------------------------------------------- Don't hold liberals responsible for their opinion -- they can't help themselves.A new study has concluded that ideology is not just a social thing, it's built into the DNA, borne along by a gene called DRD4. Tagged "the liberal gene," DRD4 is the first specific bit of human DNA that predisposes people to certain political views, the study's authors claim."We hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences will tend to be more liberal, but only if they are embedded in a social context that provides them with multiple points of view,"... the...

For several years now I have made it my focus and goal to keep my messages geared toward the positive aspects of health: what your healthiest options are, and what directions will lead you to the best healthy results for you and your families. My mission is to provide you with healthy alternatives to drugs and surgery, so that you can obtain dynamic health and energy for yourselves and your loved ones. In May of 2009, I attended a medical conference with ACAM (American College for Advancement in Medicine), and several of the studies and lectures shared have made it...

A BLACK couple coo over their new baby yesterday - a white, blue-eyed BLONDE. British Nmachi Ihegboro has amazed genetics experts who say the little girl is NOT an albino. Dad Ben, 44, a customer services adviser, admitted: "We both just sat there after the birth staring at her." Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3060907/Black-parents-give-birth-to-white-baby.html#ixzz0uBV6fzng

Twenty-one college football players have collapsed and died as a result of training over the past decade. At least eight were carriers of the sickle-cell trait, a genetic disorder that can unpredictably turn deadly during rigorous exercise. A blood test to screen for the trait costs about $5, and many university team doctors and athletic trainers support compulsory testing, arguing that it could save lives. Yet a proposal to make such testing mandatory for all N.C.A.A. Division I athletes is not a sure bet to pass when it comes up for a vote by member conferences as early as Monday...

ScienceDaily: “Slowing Evolution to Stop Drug Resistance” --snip-- For years, evolutionists have pointed to antibiotic resistance as proof of evolution in action. The argument often amounts to this (in simplified form): the fact that certain organisms grow resistant to certain antibiotics is evidence for the evolutionary idea that all animals must have descended from a single ancestor. Collapsing the argument does make it seem a bit silly, but that’s our point. We certainly don’t want to belittle the very real threat of dangerous organisms becoming immune to the best drugs we now have (though the vast majority of microbes are...

New reseach challenges previous theories of continent population New questions of human origin could shed light on what makes groups of people more or less prone to certain diseases, an OU researcher has found. Cecil Lewis, assistant professor of anthropology and director of the OU Molecular Anthropology laboratory, studied genetic diversity among American populations. His research is not only groundbreaking for anthropology but it could also affect future health research. “I made a number of surprising discoveries, some of which actually applied to the Americas as a whole,” Lewis said. Lewis’ research, which was recently published in the American Journal...

The world's largest cat, the Amur tiger, is down to an effective wild population of fewer than 35 individuals, new research has found. Although up to 500 of the big cats actually survive in the wild, the effective population is a measure of their genetic diversity. That in turn is a good predictor of the Amur tiger's chances of survival. The results come from the most complete genetic survey yet of wild Amur tigers, the rarest subspecies of tiger.

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean scientists say they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases. The four dogs, all named "Ruppy" — a combination of the words "ruby" and "puppy" — look like typical beagles by daylight. But they glow red under ultraviolet light, and the dogs' nails and abdomens, which have thin skins, look red even to the naked eye.