Aug 16, 2012 4:06pm

Image credit: WABC

In what may be a first anywhere, a Whos Your Daddy truck is cruising New York City selling DNA tests to people who want to confirm their childs paternity or even whether their parents are biologically related to them.

The brown and white RV, which is bedecked in eye catching signs advertising its services, is more than just a moving billboard, according to driver and operator Jared Rosenthal. The RV is set up to be a drug testing clinic and a DNA testing clinic, he told ABC News. Its essentially a mobile office so while were working people will walk up and ask questions and sometimes even take a test right on board.

Rosenthal, who works at mobile and clinic based testing company Health Street, came up with the idea for the truck himself.Necessity is the mother of invention, he said. Icouldntafford to rent an office, so I thought, we can convert the RV to a mobile office. People love the artworkit makes them smile and they share it with their friends on social media and get in touch with people who maybe do need DNA tests.

But its not all smiles aboard the Whos Your Daddy Truck, which often plays host to the full spectrum of human emotions. DNA really gets at a persons identity, it gets to the core of their identity, who your parents are, who your children are, how you define yourself ethnically and culturally. Rosenthal said The RV is a little more intimate than a clinic,clients tend to talk more they tell us things, we experience some of these life-changing moments with them.

Rosenthal brought up the story of one woman in her early 20s who came in for a test, only to find out that the people she believed to be her father and her three half-sisters was not related to her at all. In fact, the test revealed she was from an entirely different ethnic background. When she found out her father wasnt her biological father it totally rocked her identity to the core, he said.

He recounted meeting an 18-year-old woman from another state who had contacted the man she believed to be her father living in New York. A DNA test at the truck proved it was true, bringing a broken family back together. He began to form a relationship with this woman and it was great. Rosenthal said. They lost 18 years but they found each other.

Drama aside, Rosenthal insists that the truck is much more than a mobile Maury, providing a service that is very approachable, very accessible, and very available to the community.

The DNA, drug, and alcohol tests, which range in price from $79 to$599 are available at the truck or at local health street clinics. Although based in New York, the organization has partnered with out-of-state clinics and the US Consulate to provide testing in the event that one or more of the parties may live out of the state or country.

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Who's Your Daddy? Mobile Truck Offers DNA Tests to Go

Researchers code a book into DNA, demonstrating the possibility of using the biological molecule for long-term data storage.

Coding messages into DNA was first demonstrated in the 1980s, but technology at the time would only allow one graphical symbol to be encoded. While that capacity has grown over the last 3 decades, the largest project to date, completed in 2010, managed just 7,920 bits of data, equating to approximately half a page of typed text. Using a novel technique, detailed today in Science, researchers at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities, have now encoded a 53,000-word book into DNA, including 11 JPG images and one JavaScript program.

Others have pointed out that DNA has certain advantages, said study co-author Sriram Kosuri. But no one had really taken it to a level that we were able to code really useful amounts of information.

Those advantages include the density of information that can be stored: an estimate of maximum capacity predicts that one gram of single-strand DNA could store as much as an exabyte (1018 bytes) of data. However, synthesizing and sequencing DNA carries a lot of inherent errors. Synthetic DNA typically has one incorrect nucleotide in every 70, and next gen sequencing techniques can make many mistakes when interpreting the stored data.

To overcome such errors, the team assigned the bases A and C as 0s, and G and T as 1s, creating a digital data stream. The manuscript and its accompanimentsa draft version of a book co-authored by one of the studys authors, George Church, called Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselveswas converted to HTML before being translated into the stream of 0s and 1s that could be written into the DNA sequence. The resulting stream was 5.27 megabits long, or 5.27 million 0s and 1s.

Previous methods have faced problems when trying to create whole streams in one long DNA sequence, a tricky and expensive process. The teams solution was to split the stream into smaller sections. They coded 96 bits per short nucleotide section, called an oligonucleotide, each of which contained a 19-bit address to order the information in the overall sequence. Each oligonucleotide was synthesized multiple times, so that upon reading, errors could be compared in each copy and a consensus reading could be reached.

Its a similar in the way that when you sequence the human genome, you dont sequence it once, you sequence it at 30 or 50 times coverage, and you just take consensus at each position, said Kosuri.

After synthesizing the sequence and attaching drops of DNA to microarray chips, the data was stored at 4 degrees Celsius for 3 months before being dissolved in water, amplified by PCR, and sequenced. By storing multiple copies, and sequencing each copy many times to reach consensus, the team managed to decode the entire 5.27-million-bit sequence with only 10 bit errors.

Theyve come up with a very clever way of managing error in the creation of the information, said synthetic biologist Steven Benner at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, who was not involved in the study. [The authors] provide some clever ways to get around the problems, allowing the reading of the minority molecules containing the desired information amid the larger numbers of molecules that do not.

While DNA storage is not re-writable, and not intended to replace your hard drive, the idea of long-term storage of large amounts of data in a very small space has advantages for archiving records and data. In contrast to a flat disc like a CD, with data only inscribed on the surface, a sheet of DNA has data stored throughout its thickness. The major challenge that remains, however, is the cost and efficiency of todays synthesizing and sequencing technologies, which currently make this system impractical for regular use. As sequencing costs continue to drop and technologies continue to advance, however, such DNA storage strategies may soon become much more practical.

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DNA Data Storage

16 August 2012Harvard University researchers converted a 53 000-word book into DNA and then read the DNA-encoded book using gene-sequencing technology, the researchers report this week in Science. The project is by far the largest demonstration of digital information storage in DNA and the densest consolidation of data in any medium, the authors say.

There is a clear need for improved long-term storage of massively large data, says George Church, a geneticist at Harvards Wyss Institute and one of the leaders of the research. There is data that we are throwing away or dont collect because we cant afford to store it, such as video surveillance of public spaces and large research projects, he says. Someday that wont be necessary. The question is, What will get us there first: electronic or molecular memory?

DNA offers advantages over electronic storage, but whether it will ever make sense practically or economically is unclear. DNA can store more digital information per cubic millimeter than flash memory or even cutting-edge experimental memories such as quantum holography. Data stored in DNA is also recoverable for millennia (consider the 7000-year-old DNA archaeologists have extracted from human remains). And given DNAs biological importance, we can safely assume its going to remain a readable standard for a long time. If you look at the size per bit of stored memory as DNA, its unlikely that well ever get better than that, says Joseph Jacobson, a synthetic biologist at MIT who was not involved in the project.

But making and reading DNA isnt yet practical. Synthesizing and sequencing DNA is expensive, although the cost for both of these technologies has been dropping at a rate of five- and twelvefold per year, respectively. Whats more, unlike electronic bits, most DNA data cannot be changed once its written. And with todays technology, information in DNA usually has to be accessed as a whole, not in parts. (There is no way to make random-access DNA memory.)

Church and his colleagues set out to demonstrate a simple way to densely store data in DNA. They converted an html draft of a book comprising 53 426 words, 11 JPG images, and one JavaScript program into a 5.27 megabit set of zeros and ones. Using software they wrote, zeros were assigned the letter A or C for the DNA bases adenine and cytosine, and ones were assigned the letter G or T for DNA bases guanine and thymine. A lowercase f from the book, for example, was represented in binary as 01100110 and encoded in DNA as ATGAATTC.

Synthesizing that string of bits would yield a stretch of DNA that was 5.27 million bases long. Such long stretches of DNA are particularly expensive to work with, so Church and his colleagues split the DNA sequence into short chunks that were each 96 bases long. Each chunk included a 19-bit bar code, or address, to show where that chunk belonged in the whole of the book. The DNA was synthesized, inkjet-printed on a glass DNA microchip, and then cleaved off and dried to form a 50-nanogram clump smaller than a speck of pollen.

To convert the DNA back to a book, Church and his colleagues read out the bases using commercially available sequencing technology. They then arranged the sequence, decoded it back to zeros and ones, and converted those back to an HTML book. The researchers were able to complete the project with errors in only 10 bits out of 5.27 millionon par with the raw error rate of other storage media, says Sriram Kosuri, a staff scientist at the Wyss Institute who also worked on the project.

The tome that got the honor of becoming the worlds first biological book is the forthcoming Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. The book, coauthored by Church, will be published in more conventional forms this fall.

Similar approaches have been demonstrated before, but on a smaller scale. In 2001, Carter Bancroft and his colleagues at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine encoded in DNA the opening lines of Charles Dickenss A Tale of Two Cities. A 2010 project from the J. Craig Venter Institute encoded a 7920-bit watermark in a bacterium genome sequence. Churchs paper, however, takes us from a few bits to many megabits, says Jacobson. If you have a big enough quantitative advance, at some point theres a qualitative shift, and Id say thats the case here.

But another researcher who studies the intersection of biology and technology and asked to remain anonymous calls Churchs paper a silly vanity project with little value. Its like showing you could painstakingly use an abacus to solve a Hamiltonian path problem that would take the average computer a microsecond, he says. Other than maybe military intelligence, finding real-world applications for DNA storage technology under no conceivable set of circumstances is even remotely likely, he says.

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Reading and Writing a Book With DNA

DNA can be used to store information at a density about a million times greater than your hard drive, report researchers in Science today. George Church of Harvard Medical School and colleagues report that they have written an entire book in DNA, a feat that highlights the recent advances in DNA synthesis and sequencing.

The team encoded a draft HTML version of a book co-written by Church called Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. In addition to the text, the biological bits included the information for modern formatting, images and Javascript, to show that DNA (like other digital media) can encode executable directives for digital machines, they write.

To do this, the authors converted the computational language of 0's and 1's into the language of DNA--the nucleotides typically represented by A's, T's G's and C's; the As and Cs took the place of 0's and Ts and Gs of 1's. They then used off-the-shelf DNA synthesizers to make 54,898 pieces of DNA, each 159 nucleotides long, to encode the book, which could then be decoded with DNA sequencing.

This is not the first time non-biological information has been stored in DNA, but Church's demonstration goes far beyond the amount of information stored in previous efforts. For example, in 2009, researchers encoded 1688 bits of text, music and imagery in DNA and in 2010, Craig Venter and colleagues encoded a watermarked, synthetic genome worth 7920 bits.

DNA synthesis and sequencing is still too slow and costly to be practical for most data storage, but the authors suggest DNAs long-lived nature could make it a suitable medium for archival storage.

Erik Winfree, who studies DNA-based computation at Caltech and was a 1999 TR35 winner, hopes the study will stimulate a serious discussion about what roles DNA can play in information science and technology.

The most remarkable thing about DNA is its information density, which is roughly one bit per cubic nanometer, he writes in an email.

Technology changes things, and many old ideas for DNA information storage and information processing deserve to be revisited now -- especially since DNA synthesis and sequencing technology will continue their remarkable advance.

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An Entire Book Written in DNA

6 hrs.

Francie Diep , InnovationNewsDaily

Bioengineers have turned a book into DNA. The researchers also have shown they can decode the DNA to re-create the book, which includes 53,426 words, 11 images and one interactive Javascript app.

This may be the world's only modern biology book that costs thousands of dollars to read as well as write.

The new bio-digital book, coded from a Harvard University researcher's writings on synthetic biology, represents the largest amount ofdata ever written into DNA. Because of how costly and complex it is to read and write genetic material, DNA is still far from a practical storage drive. Yet as the price of synthesizing and sequencing DNA continues to drop, it may become an interesting way of storing data for the very long term, said Sriram Kosuri, a Harvard bioengineer who was one of the bio-digital book's creators.

"It brings a different perspective into the storage field," Kosuri told InnovationNewsDaily.

"At this point, it's very premature to hope that it would actually become something practical," said Stefano Lonardi, a computational biologist at the University of California, Riverside, who was not part of the Harvard effort. Nevertheless, Lonardi said, the work is a step toward DNA storage in the future. "These are things that people have to do first in order to get to something practical," he said.

Turning an e-book into DNATo turn text and pictures into a double helix, the book had to undergo several translations. First, Kosuri and his colleagues wrote an HTML file of a draft of the book that Harvard bioengineer George Church was writing at the time. HTML is the language Web developers use to write websites.

The biologists then turned the HTML into binary, the 1s and 0s that computers read. They decided to use the individual building blocks of DNA, commonly referred to by their one-letter initials, to represent the 1s and 0s. The building blocks A and C would represent 0s, they decided, while G and T would represent 1s. They then assembled strands of DNA representing their binary code. [10 Technologies Poised to Transform our World]

One of the greatest challenges of building DNA from scratch is that it's expensive and difficult to create long, unbroken strings of the stuff. So Kosuri and his teammates decided they would make very many smaller pieces instead, tagging each piece with an address so that someone trying to read the strands would be able to put them in the correct order. Such pieces are easy for the latest DNA-reading technology, callednext-generation sequencing, to process.

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Book converted to DNA then 'read' to show off bio-digital storage

August 16, 2012 - With built-in, removable diaphragm pump, CentriVap DNA Centrifugal Concentrator processes DNA samples and other minute quantities of solvents. Up to 60, 1.5 mL and 72, 0.5 mL micro centrifuge tubes may be processed simultaneously. There are 9 user-set programs accessible via buttons, and Quick-Start(TM) One Button Start Up function starts rotor, heater, timers, and vacuum pump. Along with Quick-Stop(TM) Rotor Brake, features include inlet and exhaust traps and optional CentriZap Strobe Light. Original Press release Labconco Corp. 8811 Prospect Ave. Kansas City, MO, 64132 2696 USA The CentriVap DNA Centrifugal Concentrator processes DNA samples and other minute quantities of solvents. Up to 60 each 1.5 ml and 72 each 0.5 ml micro centrifuge tubes may be processed at once.

With a built-in, removable diaphragm pump, the CentriVap DNA Concentrator has 9 user-set programs accessible with the touch of a few buttons. The Quick-Start(TM) One Button Start Up starts the rotor, heater, timers and vacuum pump. Three Quick-Start Buttons store one user-set program each. The Quick-Stop(TM) Rotor Brake stops vacuum within seconds to open the valve and bleed air into the chamber. Separate heat and run times allow the heat to be turned off sooner than the rotation to protect heat sensitive samples from excessive heat exposure. The Run Time turns off all functions after the set period of time has expired. Both an inlet trap to collect liquid coming off the samples and an exhaust trap to collect liquid coming off the pump exhaust are included. An optional CentriZap Strobe Light which utilizes a flashing light the same frequency as the rotation of the rotor allows remaining samples to be viewed in either sample tube or microtiter plate while it is spinning.

For more information on the CentriVap DNA Concentrator and the rest of the CentriVap line, contact Labconco at 800-732-0031, or download the PDF brochure at http://www.labconco.com.

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DNA Sample Concentrator uses centrifugal force and vacuum.

LEAMINGTON SPA, England, Aug. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --DNA Dynamics, Inc. (OTC Pink: DNAD), a global developer and publisher of mobile video games and applications, today announced that the latest iteration of it's SLAM Engine Technology, SLAM V7.0, is currently in development.

The SLAM Engine is DNA's powerful proprietary technology on which all of its internally developed games are built. SLAM 6.x has been in use over the last 18 months however the gaming world has moved on in that time. The SLAM Engine has always been focused on delivering games on multiple platforms over a short development cycle and SLAM 7.0 takes this ethos to the next level. Built around the popular programing language of C# and the Mono Framework SLAM 7.0 will see DNA's next batch of games move on from both technical and time to market standpoints

Ed Blincoe, CEO of DNA Dynamics Inc., commented, "Redeveloping the SLAM Engine has been a major undertaking for the team however it was critical we keep ahead of the pack in terms of our development processes and time to market. Our next game is currently being built upon the new technology base and we've already seen a marked improvement in game performance and build speed, I'm excited about what we can achieve using the new SLAM Engine and the games it will produce." Blincoe continued, "By utilizing our own technology we can substantially reduces our development costs making us a company to watch into 2013."

The DNA Studios Team is currently transitioning over to the new technology base and expects to have its first game to market before the end of the year.

About DNA Dynamics, Inc.Headquartered in Leamington Spa in the United Kingdom, DNA Dynamics is a worldwide developer and publisher of graphically rich, interactive entertainment currently delivered on iOS, Android, Apple Mac and PC. Through its operating subsidiaries, the Company has created, acquired or licensed a portfolio of highly recognizable or emerging brands that broadly appeal to its consumer demographics, ranging from children to adults and casual gamers to serious enthusiasts. For more information, please go to http://www.dnadynamics.net.You can also follow the Company on Facebook and Twitter.

For more information please email info@dna-interactive.com.

Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release may contain forward-looking statements, including information about management's view of DNA Dynamics, Inc.'s future expectations, plans and prospects. In particular, when used in the preceding discussion, the words "believes," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," or "may," and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Any statements made in this news release other than those of historical fact, about an action, event or development, are forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the results of DNA Dynamics, its subsidiaries and concepts to be materially different than those expressed or implied in such statements. Unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on DNA Dynamics' future results. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date hereof. DNA Dynamics cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Finally, DNA Dynamics undertakes no obligation to update these statements after the date of this release, except as required by law, and also takes no obligation to update or correct information prepared by third parties that are not paid for by DNA Dynamics.

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DNA Dynamics Announce SLAM Engine Overhaul

by Gene Kang

WHAS11.com

Posted on August 15, 2012 at 12:37 PM

Updated today at 6:41 PM

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WHAS11) -- A Louisville man who faced the death penalty is free tonight. Thats after prosecutors dropped a murder charge against him. It was DNA evidence that ultimately cleared him but not before he spent several years behind bars.

The Hall of Justice is where Carlos Lagantta claimed his freedom in more ways than one. He was waiting for trial for five years three for the current case and two for an unrelated charge. But Lagantta says he never grew bitter after being wrongfully accused of murder.

Overall, Carlos Lagantta served three years in prison for a murder he did not commit. He felt an overwhelming sense of freedom as a court of law declared that he's innocent.

WHAS 11 News: "What are you doing here at the Hall of Justice today?" "I'm turning in my HIP equipment and being a free man. Once I turn this in I'm all the way free," said Lagantta.

"Not only did he put this behind him but he was facing the death penalty," said Ryan Vantrease, Laganttas lawyer.

"It is the Commonwealth's decision to dismiss without prejudice," said prosecution in Judge Audra Eckerles court in Jefferson County.

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DNA evidence clears Louisville man of murder charges

15 August 2012 Last updated at 09:38 ET

The man accused of murdering a Perthshire pensioner was "gobsmacked" to learn a partial profile of his DNA was found on her wrist, a court heard.

The jury was read parts of William Kean's police interviews which took place in March, the month after 80-year-old Jenny Methven was found dead.

Mr Kean, 46, denies killing Mrs Methven at her Forteviot home on 20 February.

He has lodged a special defence blaming the victim's son David Methven, or others connected to him.

The High Court in Glasgow heard Mr Kean told police during the interview that he did not assault Mrs Methven.

Det Sgt Brian Smith had told the accused he was offering him a chance to explain what had happened.

Mr Kean denied murdering Mrs Methven but replied "no comment" when asked if he had been in her house and then refused to explain that answer.

He also told officers that if he knew who was involved in her murder, he would tell them.

Mr Kean had said to officers: "I wish I did. I wish someone would come forward and admit it. It's a sad time for everybody."

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DNA evidence 'gobsmacked' accused