Stories tagged DNA
Nicolas "Sly dog" Copernicus: What's he thinking about? What's he looking at? The stars? Young research assistants? His future as a cyborg?
Courtesy Regional Museum of TurunLost for hundreds of years, the final resting place and remains of the father of modern astronomy, Nicolas Copernicus, have been found in the Frombork Cathedral in northern Poland.
Copernicus was born in 1473 in Torun, Poland, and he was the first European to suggest that the Earth rotated on its own axis once a day, and revolved around the sun once a year. Followers of the Ptolemaic theory, which had the universe revolving around the Earth, were all, “Say what?!” And some of them were even, like, “Oh no you di’n’t” and snapped in Z-formation at him. Copernicus was all “Believe it, y’all.”
But then Master C died in 1543, and seventy-three years later a pope condemned his work as contrary to scripture, and a lot of people were all “Copernicus who?” And we all forgot exactly where he was buried.
The Bishop of Frombork, however, had the notion that DJ N.C. Astronomy might be hiding out in the tombs beneath the cathedral. A few years ago, archaeologists found a body that more or less matched Copernicus’ description (male, about 70 years old, dead), but it was only recently that geneticists were actually able to confirm the identification of the remains—DNA taken from the skeleton matched DNA taken from two strands of hair found in a book known to have belonged to Copernicus.
Debate on the issue has now centered on best way to resurrect Copernicus. German researchers, for the most part, are strongly in favor of the zombie method, while their polish counterparts argue that the strength and processing power of a cyborg frame would better suit the crumbly astronomer. French scientists are dead set on cloning a younger, sexier body for Master C. The Bishop of Frombork, meanwhile, just wants to put something nice together for the tomb.
Any thoughts?
UPDATE 11/21—I just came across this article this morning. It's mostly the same information that was in the other article I linked to, but there's a cool image of the facial reconstruction from Copernicus' skull. The final image really does look like Copernicus as an old man.
Tags : 
Man vs. mammoth: Is a face-off like this in our future...again?
Courtesy redskunkScientists are another step closer to making Jurassic Park a reality. Well, not quite Jurassic Park, but certainly Pleistocene Park.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have decoded 80 percent of the DNA for the woolly mammoth, an elephant ancestor that went extinct about 10,000 years ago. The results of their study appear in the journal Nature.
The DNA was extracted from actual mammoth hair found preserved in the permafrost of Siberia. Hair encapsulates DNA, providing a purer source of the genetic material than that found in fossil bones that are vulnerable to contamination by bacteria and other creatures involved in decomposition. We covered this in a previous post.
About six million years of evolution separate the wooly mammoth from its modern descendents the Indian and African elephants. And so far they appear genetically to be very similar, although a complete assessment of differences won’t be available until the complete genomes of mammoths and modern elephants are mapped. The data sets for each is comprised of about 4 billion DNA bases.
But even then you don’t have to worry about rogue mammoths running amok on the interstates (have you ever hit a moose? Multiply that experience by about 15). Science is still decades away from cloning an actual specimen – or even a hybrid with a living elephant - from the genetic material. The technology just isn’t there yet. But that’s not the only thing in the way.
"It could be done,” said co-author Stephan Schuster, a biochemistry professor at Penn State. “The question is, just because we might be able to do it one day, should we do it?"
Sounds familiar doesn’t it? The same question was posed by one of the characters in Michael Crichton's book Jurassic Park just before things got really hairy.
SOURCES and LINKS
Penn State's mammoth research page
Live Science story
Previous Buzz story on mammoth cloning
I hope I don't get in trouble for posting this, but here's a BBC-produced video showing a whale shark pooping. There is good scientific inquiry behind this, so to speak. Why would scientists what to see, and get samples of, whale shark poop? Share your ideas here.
The world’s oldest bachelor
in Life Science, Heredity, Biological Populations Change Over Time, and Human Organism
Sorry, kid, you're barking up the wrong tree: Otzi ain't yer dad. And, whoever you pops is, I doubt you dressing up like that will make him love you any more.
Courtesy japi14I think this came out a couple weeks ago, so maybe it’s old news to y’all—although, technically, I suppose it’s old news to everyone.
Otzi (Remember? Otzi the Iceman?) died alone.
No, wait, that didn’t come out right. Otzi the Iceman didn’t die alone—he probably died surrounded by his killers, after they had shot him in the chest with an arrow, as one of them likely finished him off by clubbing his skull in. What I meant was Otzi died alone in the genetic sense, with no one to carry on his legacy. (His legacy of being a five-foot-five total badass.)
It turns out that Otzi, in spite of his many, many admirable qualities, probably had no children. Or, at least, that Otzi’s lineage has died out since the time of his death.
Previous studies had suggested that Otzi may have had living descendants somewhere in Europe, but recent genetic research has shown that this is unlikely. Italian and British scientists have analyzed the iceman’s mitochondrial DNA—which is passed on solely matrilineally—and the results seem to indicate that Otzi was part of a heretofore unknown genetic line, and one that has probably gone extinct.
Oh, fudge. And here I was, still holding out hope.
What gives, caveladies? What was so bad about the little iceman? Too tough, I’m guessing. The same reason women could never get truly close to the Fonz.
*It occurs to me that Otzi could have had a child himself, and his mitochondrial DNA wouldn’t have been passed on. Maybe he just had equally intimidating sisters.
Thieves have more to worry about than fingerprints
Courtesy kevindooleyIn the course of robbing a house, it may seem like a small thing to snag a can of pop. But leaving that can behind can also leave the evidence necessary for a conviction. A recent Associated Press article, Police use DNA to solve everyday property crimes, detailed the increasing use of DNA by Denver police in burglary and car theft cases. A Denver suspect was convicted of five robberies because he left pop cans behind at each scene. DNA analysis of his saliva then linked him to all five cases. Other convictions came from a lollipop and a tuna sandwich. The average stolen property sentence in Denver in a case where DNA was used as evidence was 14 years as opposed to an average 11/2 years without DNA.
Using DNA has become more possible now because it is less expensive, requires a smaller sample, and takes less time than before. On the low end, it can take only 12 hours and 50 dollars. The CSI exhibit currently at the Science Museum seeks to show visitors how the techniques seen on the show are used in real-world forensics, so I thought it was interesting that the article included this quote:
"Regular watchers of CSI may be led to believe that this technology is already being used in this way, but it's really brand-new," said John Roman of the Urban Institute, lead author of a study on the issue. "This really is the start of a revolution in policing."
A goral goat: Nice trick, goat, but we saw through it. Feeling a little sheepish now, huh?
Courtesy OpencageDo y’all remember that exhilarating and frightening moment in late July when some fresh “Yeti” hair was found? Oh, come on—you remember. Think back. You probably had some bowel spasms. I posted about it.
If you’re not into checking out links, the basic story was this: a man in a heavily forested region of northeast India had collected some strange hairs from an area where there had been several sightings in the last few days of a large, Bigfoot-like creature. The hairs couldn’t immediately be identified, but they looked a little like the “yeti hair” collected by Sir Edmund Hilary on his famous yeti hunt (I’m using quotation marks there because the “yeti” hair came from a “deer” and Hilary probably knew it). So the hairs were sent to a lab for DNA testing.
And the results are in.
It was a goat. Not a huge, hairy man-beast. Not a jovial, crook-legged goat-boy. A Himalayan Gray Goral (goat).
This might be a disappointment for the Bigfoot enthusiasts of India’s Garo Hills region (although they insist that the creature is still out there, even if it isn’t leaving its own hair around), but, in its own way, it’s an interesting discovery. The goral was never thought to roam that far south in India—it was believed to only live in the Himalayas, at elevations above 1,000 meters.
So, while we haven’t uncovered indisputable genetic evidence of a South Asian ape-man, our time on the cryptocouch hasn’t been a total waste—we’ve come out with a more practical (if less spectacular) discovery about a mundane animal.
You kids get out of here!: Are those cigarettes? What do you have under that hat? Is that a gang sign?
Courtesy fromagieI’m tired of you hanging around with those riff raff friends of yours. I hear that they smoke. Do you think smoking is cool? Is cancer cool too, then?
And y’all listen to that loud gang music, and I know what that music is about: it’s about devil worship. Devil worship and gangs.
And no son of mine is going to wear eyeliner and dog collars. What do you think you are? A dog? A prostitute? Some kind of prostitute dog?
Didn’t I raise you right, Junior? Where’d all this garbage behavior come from?
And pause!
What’s happening here, folks? Where did Junior’s delinquent behavior come from? Well, I’ll tell you where it came from: it came from his parents, in more ways than one.
Recent genetic research has shown that the tendency of adolescent males to associate with delinquent peers has strong association with a particular variation of the dopamine transporter gene, DAT1. So, basically, there’s a genetic influence behind nogoodniks sticking together.
It’s sort of a disturbing finding, when you consider past efforts to isolate—and eliminate—“unfavorable” genetic traits (it’s called eugenics, and it’s bad, bad news). However, the research also demonstrated that not all males with the DAT1 variation were more inclined to associate with delinquent peers. In fact, a large group of boys with the genetic variation showed no increased tendency towards delinquent peer groups at all: boys with highly engaged and warm families.
Family environment seemed to be the deciding factor in a kid’s chosen social group. Boys most likely to run with a bad crowd had the DAT1 variations and a family life marked by maternal disengagement and lack of affection.
Once again, the answer to “Nature or Nurture?” seems to be, “yes.”
Cute, nautical, and Scandinavian: But probably smaller.
Courtesy hans sSo… we’re learning about genetics, aren’t we? We can’t help it—here we have see-through frogs, there we have genetically engineered vegetables, here we have a fatherless child with the same hair color, eye color, and blood type as me. Genetics are all around us these days, in our schools, in our dinners, and calling our lawyers. As much as we might try to hide from it, the subject is unavoidable.
It’s nice, then, when some aspect of this genetic tsunami can take our minds off of all the tricky stuff. Things like mutant frogs are fun (All those legs! Somebody give them their own cartoon!), but they never last long (The frogs tend to die. Cancel the frog show.)
I think, however, that I may have found a winner: Viking mice. They’re genetically remarkable, and they’re lifespan is the same as any other mouse: about 2 or 3 years. Somebody start work on a Viking Mouse cartoon!
So what we have here is your common house mouse. The house mouse evolved into a variety of different strains as it spread into Western Europe about 3,000 years ago, during the Iron Age. Little French house mice learned to wear berets and smoke cigarettes, German mice developed a love of sausages and efficiency, and so forth; the Iron Age was a wonderful time, and it birthed many of our favorite cultural stereotypes. However, something interesting has come up in a recent genetic study of British house mice.
The surprising result of a nationwide rash of mouse paternity cases, the mice of Britain were surprised to find that they themselves were the products of unexpected parents. Studying their mitochondrial DNA (traceable genetic material from the mother’s side), it appears that most mice from mainland Britain are closely related to mice from Germany (the descendants of little Saxon mice?). Mice from the Orkney Islands of Northern Scotland, however, were found to be “Viking mice,” genetically similar to mice from Norway. And it makes sense—the Orkneys were an important center of the Norwegian Viking “kingdom,” back in the 11th and 12th centuries. These little mousies are the descendants of the warlike Viking mice, who hitched rides across the North Sea in the holds of Viking longboats a thousand years ago. Or… maybe they had their own tiny boats… Viking mice!
We pretty much already knew that Vikings were in the Orkneys at that time, but the genetic evidence from the mice are is a good example of how non-human DNA (mitochondrial DNA in particular) can be a tool for tracking other historical human migrations, and… and…
Just picture those little Viking mice. Tiny helmets, curly little beards, squeaky battle cries… they must have been adorable. Just to see them slaughtering little monk mice, it must have been too cute.
Oh, also, while we’re on the subject of house mice—I noticed this little section in Wikipedia’s article on them. After being accidentally introduced to the south Atlantic Gough Island, house mice, which normally have a body length of about 3 inches, began growing “unusually large” and feeding on albatross chicks. The mice kill the chicks, which can be about a meter tall, by “working in groups and gnawing on them until the bleed to death.” Talk about Viking mice.
The Cuero Chupacabra: A photograph of the mystery animal itself. Gorgeous.
Courtesy Phylis B. CanionThe Cuero Chupacabra lives!
Well, not “lives” literally. It was, in fact, hit by a car, decapitated, and frozen, which makes living difficult for most things. But the tenacious crypto-beast refuses to be silent, even in death, and so I invite you all to have a seat on the cryptocouch, and kick up your feet on the ottoman of open-mindedness. Do so now.
A quick refresher: Last year a Texas woman found several strange looking animals on a road near her ranch—all had apparently been struck by cars. The creatures were about 40 pounds each, grayish, largely hairless, fanged, and dog-like. It was suggested that these animals might have been responsible for the deaths by exsanguination (removal of blood) of dozens of chickens in the area over the last several years, and so they were associated with the legendary Latin American bloodsucking monster the chupacabra. These kinds of claims are made all the time, but this lady actually had the foresight to keep the bodies—or at least their heads—in her freezer for tests.
Refresher #2: A couple months later, the creature’s DNA results came back, and it was declared that the “chupacabras” were nothing more than coyotes with skin problems. Science Buzz had a post on this story too, and here’s the link for Texas State University’s take on the DNA results they came up with. And that’s about where coverage on the Cuero chupacabra dropped off (except for a sighting this summer).
Are coyotes the culprits?: Or are the Cuero creatures something different entirely?
Courtesy matt knoth
But the story’s not quite over! The woman who shot the creatures claims that the results of the DNA tests were not accurately represented by the media, and that the story was dismissed without sufficient investigation. Phylis, the Cuero rancher herself, recently sent Science Buzz a letter regarding some of the problems she has with the sick coyote theory:
You state the Cuero Chupacabra is a sick coyote. Based on what evidence?
I have the beast, I have the DNA, and I have talked to multitudes of scientist and biologist and not ONE person has stated that this animal is a sick coyote.
What we know:
It DID NOT have mange
It is a cross between two animals that do not breed
It has blue eyes
I will continue to research this beast as I stated I would when I first began observing it two years ago!!I hope this info helps-
Phylis
And so today the cryptocouch is no longer a place of simple relaxation, it is a nexus of discussion! What do you all think? If it’s not a mythological creature, and it’s not exactly a coyote, what is it?
Leave your comments and questions here. Hopefully Phylis will be joining the discussion herself—do you have any questions for her?
**Here's a link to a photo of Phylis with the creature's head. As soon as I find a postable image, I'll put it up with the story.
Can you spot the nightmare?: There he is!
Courtesy FasterDixOkay. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Every scene in Willow is frightening. Each scene is, in fact, somehow the most frightening scene. Will all of that become real too?”
Don’t worry, my doves, don’t worry.
You won’t be pursued through the forest by horrible pig dogs.
You won’t be puked on by a magic baby.
Your ethnicity won’t be slandered by drunks and soldiers.
You will not be captured and molested by hideous little rat men.
Monkeylike trolls will not chase you through derelict castles.
You won’t have to watch one of those awful trolls turn inside out and morph into a dragon. And you will not have to fight that dragon.
A shirtless Val Kilmer will not threaten you.
There will not be epic battles, nor attempted baby sacrifices.
You will not be stabbed by a man with a skull mask and an unspeakable caveman face.
A metal brazier will not chase you around a lightning-lit tower.
No wands will be brandished at you.
The town loudmouth will not belittle you in front of your family.
So, all in all, there’s relatively little to be concerned about. That said, there is one more most frightening scene to consider.
Do you remember when the army of Madmartigan and Airk Thaughbaer first laid siege to the fortress of Nockmark? Before Willow was able to fully control the powers of Cherlindrea’s wand and return Fin Raziel to her human, albeit greatly aged, form? You’ll recall that as soon as Airk, Madmartigan and Sorsha confront Bavmorda at the gates of Nockmark, the evil enchantress turns the whole of the attacking army into pigs. Once they were pigs things don’t seem so bad, but the process of turning into pigs was horrible to watch. There were hoof-hands everywhere, and emerging piggy snouts, and tusks, and oinking, and everybody looked really sweaty. It was very frightening to see, and it’s happening in our own plane of existence: human-pig hybrids have been given the go-ahead in England.
Careful examination of the story clearly indicates that half human, half pig creatures like those in Willow are neither the intent here, nor are they actually possible from these experiments. But I tend to believe what I imagine is the case more than what I’m old is the case.
If you do want to waste your time with what you’re told, however, listen up:
The aim of this research is in no way to create a weird pig man. Or a weird man pig. The goal is actually to put human DNA from skin cells into a pig egg that has had its chromosomes removed, and then let it develop into an embryo. In fact, the scientists involved are attempting to create an embryo with no animal DNA left in it at all (kind of ironic, I suppose).
There’s more to it, of course, but the idea is this: the human DNA put into the eggs will be DNA taken from people with a genetic heart disease. As the scientists observe the transformation from egg to embryo, they hope to better understand the molecular mechanics of the disease. That information could then be used to create better treatments for people living with related heart conditions. None of the “hybrids” will develop past the very first stages of being an embryo (basically a featureless sphere of cells).
Or, if you’re into letting your gut and imagination do your critical thinking for you…prepare yourself for Island of Doctor Moreau Earth.
Recent comments
Disney's new princess
The worst job in America?
Sociology surprises no one, depresses scientists: guess who’s a virgin?
Sociology surprises no one, depresses scientists: guess who’s a virgin?
Subscribe
I want to learn about
Science Buzz and all related activities
Science Museum of Minnesota, 2004-2008,
except where otherwise noted.
Copyright Information
Add a new comment