Free Republic

July 2 (UPI) -- A former corrections officer was arrested in connection with three rapes in the Sacramento area more than 20 years ago. DNA evidence led detectives to Mark Manteuffel, 59, who lived in Decatur, Ga. He was arrested Friday and is expected to be extradited to Sacramento to face multiple charges, including torture and rape. Police matched DNA from the crime scenes and rape kits to a profile assembled from a genetic testing company. The genetic profile could have been Manteuffel or a family member. Detectives used a similar method to catch the so-called "Golden State Killer," who...

In a review published in the journal Trends in Genetics on January 25, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing discuss what we know about the genetics of ancient individuals from Eurasia (Europe and Western Asia) between 45,000-7,500 years ago. The authors summarized work that investigated the genomes of more than 20 ancients in the Eurasian family tree, including the 45,000-year-old Ust'-Ishim individual from Central Siberia... ..."But with the information from the several individuals available for ancient DNA sequencing we do have hints at interesting population structure, migration and interaction in East Asia." The researchers learned that in...

In 2003, the anthropologist Duana Fullwiley spent six months observing a team of biomedical research scientists. The team wanted to find out whether genetic variation could affect how different people respond to drugs, and to do so, they recruited a group of racially and ethnically diverse research subjects. They were a diverse team themselves, with good intentions to address a worthy problem—it’s well known that different races suffer from health problems at different rates and can respond differently to treatments. If they could trace these discrepancies to genetic differences between races, the team reasoned, they could explain, and perhaps start...

It’s really annoying when people take their dogs out for a walk and don’t clean up after them, isn’t it? Being a dog owner/walker myself, I always make sure to bring a plastic bag along with me to clean up after Jake and I have pointed out to others that they should do likewise when I see someone being negligent. And yet, not everyone is so responsible, but what do we do about it? One apartment complex in Pennsylvania has come up with a rather unique solution. They’re building a DNA database of all the dogs that live there so...

The Cut recently ran a piece by Jen Gann, an outspoken, pro-choice mother who details her journey through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and genetic testing as she aims to conceive a healthy child. Her first pregnancy resulted in a son with cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disease, and what she considers a missed opportunity to abort him. In 2017, Gann filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her doctors for inadequate genetic testing that she claims would have likely determined her son had cystic fibrosis and would have then provided her the option to abort him. I responded to her lawsuit two...

The DNA of life on Earth naturally stores its information in just four key chemicals—guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine, commonly referred to as G, C, A and T, respectively. Now scientists have doubled this number of life’s building blocks, creating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter genetic language that seems to store and transcribe information just like natural DNA. In a study published on 22 February in Science, a consortium of researchers led by Steven Benner, founder of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Alachua, Florida, suggests that an expanded genetic alphabet could, in theory, also support life....

Grace Wilsey couldn’t cry. As a baby, she would lie limp in her parents’ arms, staring blankly into the distance. Her seizures wouldn’t stop and medical tests showed signs of liver damage. This was all before her second birthday. Grace’s parents were beside themselves, as any parent would be. They traveled the country visiting specialists. They ran numerous tests, but no one could diagnose Grace’s condition. “We’ve probably seen over 100 doctors,” Grace’s father said in 2014 when Grace’s symptoms were discovered. None of them could provide an explanation. Then, when their daughter turned two years old, the Wilseys tried...

Living to the ripe old age of 90 may depend on your body size -- both height and weight -- as well as your level of physical activity, and seems to influence a woman's lifespan more than it does a man's, according to a new study published Monday in the medical journal BMJ. The study found women who lived to 90 were, on average, taller and had put on less weight since the age of 20 as compared to women who were shorter and heavier. No such association was seen for men. However, men saw more benefit from physical activity...

CNN reports: "James Watson, who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA alongside Francis Crick in the 1950s based on the work of British chemist Rosalind Franklin, said in a PBS film that genes cause a difference in intelligence between white and black people in IQ tests. "The 90-year-old's comments were labeled 'reprehensible' by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) on New York's Long Island, where Watson had been the director from 1968 to 1993. The laboratory said it 'unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions Dr. James D. Watson expressed,' noting the statements were 'reprehensible [and] unsupported by science[.]'"...

A Pennsylvania wedding DJ admitted Tuesday to raping and strangling to death an elementary school teacher whose 26-year cold case was solved with help from DNA submitted to a genealogy database by his half-sister. In court Tuesday, Raymond Rowe, 50, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of 25-year-old Christy Mirack, online court records show. Rowe went by the stage name DJ Freez and claimed on his now-defunct website he worked as a DJ for celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Brooke Hogan, as well as at events featuring Sting, The Eagles and Kenny Kravitz. He was sentenced to life in prison without...

Woman takes mitochondrial DNA test to find out which African tribe she descends from, and is horrified to find out that her mitochondrial DNA is of “non-African lineage” In the first five minutes of this video, this woman goes on and on about how happy and excited she is because she just got back the results of her mitochondrial DNA test. She took the test because she wanted to find out which African tribe or tribes she is descended from. A person (male or female) inherits Mitochondrial DNA solely from their mother.After five minutes of joyous anticipation, she finally opens...

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 is very surprising,"...

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...