Axis Aerospace eyes acquisitions

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Bangalore, Oct 9 (IANS) Axis Aerospace and Technologies Ltd (AAT) is scouting for acquisitions to expand its offering in engineering services for civil, commercial and defence offset markets.

"As part of our growth strategy, we are actively scouting the market for acquisitions to expand our portfolio and meet growing demands of our global customers," AAT vice-chairman Sudhakar Gande said in a statement here Tuesday.

The city-based company, promoted by Rajya Sabha member and entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrashekar, has recently set up a new facility at Kirloskar Business Park in this tech hub to offer integrated product development services to its marquee customers, including global aerospace major Airbus.

"We have fostered strong ties with marquee firms like Airbus, Bombardier, Catarpillar, DCNS, a French naval shipbuilder, MBRDI (Mercedes-Benz Research and Development India), Premium Aerotec, Thales and Volvo," Gande said.

The company has set up a dedicated offshore development centre with its subsidiary (CADES) to develop fuselage for Airbus, while the new facility will provide solutions, including product development and manufacturing processes for aerospace, defence, automotive and heavy engineering industries.

"Along with our two subsidiaries (Axis IT&T and CADES), we offer a range of solutions in engineering services, embedded systems, avionics, testing, system integration, manufacturing and life-cycle support," Gande pointed out.

As the principal offset partner for global original equipment manufacturers, the company has aligned its services strategically to provide end-to-end solutions.

"We are on track to achieve Rs.500 crore revenue in this fiscal (2012-13), which will be a growth of about 70 percent over the last fiscal (2011-12)," Gande asserted.

The company has 1,500 employees across 10 delivery centres worldwide.

The company plans to set up a 75-acre supply chain cluster in the upcoming aerospace park near the Bangalore international airport at Devanahalli, about 40 km from the city centre, to provide manufacturing and allied support facilities to global aerospace and defence firms.

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Axis Aerospace eyes acquisitions

LMI Aerospace expanding St. Charles facility, adding 100 jobs

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LMI Aerospace Inc. is expanding its St. Charles headquarters and plans to add 100 jobs to keep up with growing demand from aircraft manufacturers and suppliers.

The aerospace manufacturing and engineering services firm announced today the capital invested in this expansion will total at least $4.3 million. The expansion will add about 49,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space to its local facilities.

LMI, which provides structural components, assemblies and kits for aerospace, defense and technology customers, employs more than 300 corporate and manufacturing employees at its St. Charles headquarters. Over the next five years, 100 jobs with an average annual wage of $70,000.

The company already has begun increasing its corporate office space, and construction on the expanded assembly space will begin within the next few months, said the company's CEO and President Ronald Saks.

LMI has 1,600 employees in 17 locations in the U.S. and Mexico, and is expanding several of its facilities. The company had $254 million in net sales in 2011 and expects to reach between $282 million and $298 million in 2012.

We've expanded almost everywhere we are, Saks said. We're investing in places where (employees') skill sets match up with the need for products.

To help pay for the local expansion, LMI is eligible for up to $1.6 million in state incentives through the Missouri Quality Jobs program, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said at a press conference at LMI's headquarters Wednesday afternoon.

"It is a testament to the work force here in St. Charles that when a global leader like LMI needed to expand, they knew they could count on the hard working men and women of Missouri to get that job done," Nixon said.

An increase in business from customers such as Boeing Co. and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. is leading to LMI's growth, company executives said.

About 39 percent of LMI's business is from large commercial aircraft customers and suppliers, and corporate and regional aircraft account for about 30 percent of its sales.

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LMI Aerospace expanding St. Charles facility, adding 100 jobs

European Aerospace Giants BAE, EADS Scrap Merger

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Enlarge Norbert Millauer/dapd

BAE Systems and EADS NV called off merger talks in the face of government objections.

BAE Systems and EADS NV called off merger talks in the face of government objections.

A deal to create a European defense and aerospace giant to rival Boeing Co. collapsed Wednesday when BAE Systems and EADS NV called off merger talks in the face of government objections.

The companies said they had "decided to terminate their discussions" over the proposed $45 billion tie-up because of conflicting interests between the British, French and German governments.

"It has become clear that the interests of the parties' government stakeholders cannot be adequately reconciled with each other or with the objectives that BAE Systems and EADS established for the merger," the companies said in a statement.

The proposed merger between Britain's BAE and Franco-German EADS, the parent of Airbus, would have created a company with a market value just shy of Boeing's.

But from the start, investors were skeptical about the deal because of the political disagreements. All three governments had to approve the deal for it to go ahead.

"It's not up to me to regret or rejoice," French President Francois Hollande said. "The French state as shareholder made known a certain number of arguments, of conditions. Our German friends had a certain number of criteria that were important to them. The British did the same. And the companies came to their conclusion."

The companies confirmed the end of their discussions just hours before a deadline on whether to go ahead with the merger, ask for more time or call it off.

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European Aerospace Giants BAE, EADS Scrap Merger

News Summary: $45 billion aerospace deal grounded

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AEROSPACE MERGER GROUNDED: A European attempt to assemble an aerospace giant to rival America's Boeing Co. collapsed Wednesday. In the end, it was the reluctance of governments in Germany, Britain and France that led to the demise of the $45 billion deal that would have combined Britain's BAE Systems, with EADS NV, of Germany and France.

INTERNATIONAL TURBULENCE: Government officials were immediately concerned about the location and scale of any job cuts. Questions were also raised about what the deal would do to the delicate balance that Germany and France have achieved in EADS after years of bickering. The British government was wary about what the prospective deal would do to BAE's big business dealings with the U.S. Some of the largest shareholders questioned the deal as well.

BIG, BIG BUSINESS: The merger would have created a company with annual sales of $90 billion. Both companies insisted that a tie-up was sought not out of necessity, but with the hope of leapfrogging Boeing to the number one spot in the industry. Boeing last year had sales of about $69 billion.

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$2.7M LSUHSC grant to reduce alcohol use & improve HIV outcomes

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Public release date: 8-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Leslie Capo lcapo@lsuhsc.edu 504-568-4806 Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center

New Orleans, LA Dr. Patricia Molina, Professor and Chair of Physiology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has been awarded a $2.7 million grant by the National Institutes of Health to develop a behavioral approach to reduce alcohol use and disorders in people living with HIV/AIDS. Alcohol use disorders are frequent in this population and are strongly associated with both decreased compliance in taking as well as the effectiveness of prescribed medicines. Alcohol is also linked to increased susceptibility to infection and viral replication.

A team of scientists led by Dr. Molina will work with LSUHSC physicians at the LSU HIV Outpatient Clinic as well as the LSUHSC School of Public Health. They will enroll 250 people living with HIV/AIDS in a clinical study that will compare intervention with a Holistic Health Recovery Program adapted for Alcohol Use Disorders with a control group in achieving or maintaining viral load suppression, reducing alcohol use and HIV risk behaviors, and improving anti-retroviral therapy adherence. It is hoped that this intervention and its future implementation will improve clinical outcomes by enhancing patients' awareness of the biomedical and psychosocial consequences of alcohol use in HIV/AIDS, and by enhancing the knowledge, motivation, and skills necessary to modify behaviors that promote HIV disease progression.

"This is the first study of this sort and it is important because the Louisiana HIV+ population appears to have a high level of alcohol use disorders compared nationally, and Louisiana also has a very high number of new HIV cases diagnosed per year," notes Patricia Molina, MD, PhD, the Richard Ashman Professor of Physiology and Head of the Department of Physiology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans and the grant's principal investigator.

Louisiana remains disproportionally affected by the HIV epidemic, with 18,602 people living with HIV/AIDS in 2011, 54% of whom had been diagnosed with AIDS, the 5th highest estimated state AIDS case rate. Among U.S. metropolitan areas, New Orleans ranks 9th in estimated HIV case rates (37 per 100,000) and 9th in AIDS case rates (23 per 100,000.)

LSU Health Sciences Center Comprehensive Alcohol Research Center researchers have demonstrated that chronic alcohol use elevates viral set point, increases lung viral levels during bacterial infection, promotes intestinal CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocyte population changes that favor disease transmission, negatively affect bone metabolism, nitrogen balance, and skeletal muscle wasting, ultimately leading to accelerated disease progression to end-stage disease.

Efficacy of the intervention will lead to improved adherence to and effectiveness of ART, improved quality of life, and decreased risky behaviors that promote HIV transmission.

"Successfully decreasing the prevalence of alcohol use disorders in this vulnerable population has the potential to significantly and positively impact the HIV epidemic by decreasing the deleterious biomedical consequences of HIV infection, improving adherence to and effectiveness of anti-retroviral therapy, improving quality of life, and decreasing risky behaviors that promote HIV transmission," concludes Dr. Molina. The grant was awarded to LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health, and it is a five-year grant.

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Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine Goes to Stem Cell Researchers

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The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was announced on Monday. The award this year went to Sir John B. Gurdon and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka. The two men were awarded the Nobel Prize jointly, for their individual work in cloning and stem cell research.

Monday's recognition marked the awarding of the first Nobel Prize for 2012. The rest of the Nobel Prize recipients will be announced throughout the next two weeks.

Here is some of the key information regarding Gurdon and Yamanaka's work and Monday's Nobel Prize announcement.

* Yamanaka and Gurdon did not work together or present shared research, even though they both concentrate their studies on a similar area of research.

* Gurdon is actually being honored for work he did back in 1962. According to a New York Times report, he was the first person to clone an animal, a frog, opening the door to further research into stem cells and cloning.

* Gurdon was able to produce live tadpoles from the adult cells of a frog, by removing the nucleus of a frog's egg and putting the adult cells in its place.

* This "reprogramming" by Gurdon laid the groundwork for Yamanaka's work four decades later. Yamanaka's work, which dates back only six years, to 2006, focused on the mechanisms behind Gurdon's results.

* According to the Los Angeles Times, Yamanaka was sharply criticized at first for his own work, in which he sought to discover how cells are able to reprogram themselves the way that Gurdon's work first suggested that they could.

* Ultimately, Yamanaka was able to isolate just four cells that were needed in order to be able to reprogram other cells back to an embryonic state, allowing them to be manipulated into developing into any particular kind of cell that was needed. These cells have now been dubbed "induced pluripotent stem cells," or iPS cells, according to reports by CNN and other media outlets.

* Scientists are reproducing Yamanaka's technique in their own labs to be able to replicate disease cells, like those of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, in order to study them and even to test the effects of potential new treatments.

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Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine Goes to Stem Cell Researchers

Health and nutrition begins with family

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Last week the University of Idaho's Women's Center sponsored Gloria Steinem to speak at the Women's Leadership Conference. Over the last 40 years, Ms. Steinem has played a pivotal role in the women's equality movement and is the co-founder of Ms. Magazine. In 1995 she was listed as one of the 25 most influential women in America. My dream of meeting this woman was far surpassed when my colleagues and I actually got the chance to chat with her about her take on the decreased health status of our children and families in the United States, specifically obesity rates.

What were her jewels of wisdom? She brashly asserted that Family and Consumer Sciences was the most important school on campus because of the significance it plays in the threads of family. What goes on in the family is the most important factor in raising healthy children; healthy children are the fabric of the future. In her studies of other cultures Ms. Steinem believes that the home is where it begins - food, love, communication, etc. This is where modeling healthy behaviors also starts. In cultures where men and women are both involved in raising the children (partnership cultures) children flourish. Equality equals harmony and health.

If we transfer this philosophy to the obesity issue, then teaching children to lead a healthy, active lifestyle begins in the home. While we can teach health and nutrition in school, it is most powerful to teach and practice good nutrition and physical activity in the home - by both parents. When I naively suggested that more women in the work force means more reliance on fast, processed, less healthy foods, Ms. Steinem quickly reminded me that women making healthy dinners for their family was only half of the equation. Men were equally responsible. When I ignorantly suggested that men "can't cook," she again reminded me that in the '50s men "couldn't type." But with the computer revolution of the '80s they quickly learned how to. Anyone can learn anything if the motivation is there.

So what is the take home message here? We gift each other with the power to choose and make choices. We as a culture need to choose to turn around the obesity epidemic by having a unified force. That unified force starts in the home with parents teaching, modeling and practicing healthy eating for their children. Filling your plate with 1/2 fruits and vegetables, a forth starches/grains and a forth protein/meat, with dairy as a chaser is a great beginning. When children ask for snacks offer fruits and vegetables. I remember when I was young and my family would sit around watching TV, my dad would bring out apples. He would meticulously peal the apple in circles with a paring knife and give each of his four children a "peel." Then he would slice it and give us each a sixth. Then he would start all over again on the next apple. I am not particularly fond of apples, but I loved this ritual and any food experience that involved my dad. The moral of the story is getting right back to the wisdom of Gloria Steinem - the family dynamic is the backbone of the health and nutritional status of our children... and the future.

Dr. SeAnne Safaii, Ph.D., RD, LD, is an assistant professor at the University of Idaho.

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Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian paintings sale achieves $15.5 million

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HONG KONG.- On the third day of Sothebys Hong Kong Autumn Sale Series 2012, the sale of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings commanded a stunning total of HK$121 million / US$15.5 million, surpassing the pre-sale estimate (HK$45 million / US$5.8 million) and achieving the highest auction total for this category. The sale also set auction records for any Southeast Asian painting and for the artist when Fortune and Longevity (pictured above) by Indonesian modern master Lee Man Fong sold for HK$34.26 million / US$4.4 million.

Bidding of Fortune and Longevity opened at HK$4 million and jumped sharply to HK$10 million after the sixth bid. The masterpiece was sold for an astonishing price of HK$34.26 million / US$4.4 million after 27 furious bids to a phone bidder. (Note: The previous auction record for Southeast Asian Paintings was also held by Lee Man Fong and was achieved by Sothebys Hong Kong when Bali Life sold for HK$25.3 million / US$3.2 million in April 2010.)

MOK Kim Chuan, Sothebys Head of Southeast Asian Paintings, said: Buyers responded with enthusiastic biddings to todays carefully curated sale of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian works, many fresh-to-the-market, with desirable provenance, rarity and quality, and gave us a record sale of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art. There had been extraordinary interest in Lee Man Fongs attractively estimated Fortune and Longevity, a large-scale masterpiece which is unique within the artists corpus in its scale, rarity, significance, and creative and technical brilliance. Ten bidders pursued the work, driving the final price to almost tripling the pre-sale expectation and set auction records for any Southeast Asian painting and for the artist. The sale offered fine examples of the leading artists of the Nanyang School and received strong support from Singaporean buyers. Building on our success with the Bandung school in our Spring sale we were able to source more exceptional works, for example, But Mochtars bronze Hubungan Keluanga (Family Ties), which attracted keen interest and sold for many multiples of its high estimate.

The market for this category is broadening and we have seen active participation today from bidders across the region. There were significant interests from established markets such as Indonesia, The Philippines and Singapore, and also from new markets in the Greater China Region, with increased participation from Taiwanese collectors.

The sale of Fine Chinese Paintings and Important Watches will be held tomorrow at 10am and 11am respectively at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

* Estimates do not include buyers premium

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Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian paintings sale achieves $15.5 million

Longevity Global Inc. Now Launches A Low Electricity Consuming And Inverter Technology Embedded Tig Welder Unit

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Longevity Global Inc. continues its back to back seasonal launches. This time the leading industrial welder manufacturing company has showcased an efficient Tig welder unit which is designed by using Inverter Technology. The continuous stock update of Longevity gives the opportunity to the industrialists to own some of the most modern welding tool which can exceed all other competitor's welding equipment in terms of quality and efficiency.

Hayward, CA (PRWEB) October 09, 2012

Longevity has both hobbyists and the professional welders in mind with the TIGWELD 160 SX. This compact, dual-voltage voltage, versatile unit offers the user a simple array of controls to accurately set the welder to perform under a wide variety of situations including fine aluminum welding. The TIGWELD 160 SX allows the welder to easily switch from 220v to 110v with the adapter plug that is included while being able to produce 160 amps on both AC and DC TIG and 140amps on Stick. Whether welding aluminum or any other metal, the TIGWELD 160 SX benefits from cutting edge inverter technology. This allows Longevity Global Inc. to offer a welder with more stability while at the same time the unit is more lightweight and reliable. The TIGWELD 160 SX is one of the more versatile welders on the market and it is backed by Longevitys industry leading warranty. Longevity Global Inc. has also stocked its inventory with diverse range of plasma cutter consumables which are scarce to find in any other conventional welding accessory shop.

With myraid of Industrial Welding tools, Longevity Global Inc. gives the welders and industrialists a large pool of cutting edge technology equipped machines to choose. Categorized machines of Longevity let the industrialists and professional welders to find the best suited welding machine for specific welding job. Availability of diverse range of professional machines like plasma cutters, Tig Welder, Mig Welder and allied accessories make Longevity the industry's biggest brand. Power backup device like small diesel generators and gas generators are also few other product lines of Longevity which are liked and appreciated all over the world.

Longevity Welding is providing its dedicated service since 2001. It is growing at a phenomenal pace with high customer satisfaction, innovative products and efficient industrial production. It works in different parts of world with distributors in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, United Kingdom, and multiple other countries. Longevity Welding serve globally with manufacturing facilities with its logistic companies to effectively distribute products in a punctual and effective manner. To know more visit http://www.longevity-inc.com

Simon Katz Longevity, Inc. 1.877.566.4462 Email Information

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Longevity Global Inc. Now Launches A Low Electricity Consuming And Inverter Technology Embedded Tig Welder Unit

UK DNA expert drew a blank with tests

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HAPPIER TIMES: Lloyd and Corryn Rayney on a family holiday in Canada in late 2003-early 2004. Source: PerthNow

A DNA expert based in London was called in to investigate whether Lloyd Rayney or another, unidentified "person of interest" were involved in the 2007 death of Mr Rayney's estranged wife, Supreme Court registrar Corryn Rayney.

But tests by forensic scientist Rosalyn Treliving did not shed any light on who may have been responsible for Mrs Rayney's death.

Ms Treliving, who specialises in the analysis of body fluids and the interpretation of DNA profiles, was asked by Major Crime Squad officers to examine hairs, DNA extracts and a handkerchief collected from crime scenes related to the case.

In a written statement tendered to the Supreme Court in Perth, she said her DNA tests were to "assist in addressing the issue" of whether Mr Rayney or a second person - whose name has been withheld - were involved in Mrs Rayney's death on August 7, 2007.

She said she understood Mr Rayney and the second individual were both "persons of interest" in the investigation.

The prominent Perth barrister has been on trial for three months charged with wilfully murdering his wife at the family home in Como on the night of August 7, 2007.

Prosecutors have alleged that Mr Rayney killed Mrs Rayney at their home before placing her body in the back of her State-issued car and driving to Kings Park where he buried her in a clandestine bush grave.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Ms Treliving said she examined hair and DNA extracts from Mrs Rayney's car; hair samples from outside the Rayneys' Como home; a handkerchief found in Mrs Rayney's grave; DNA from a tree branch near the gravesite and DNA extracts from hairs found at the grave, on Mrs Rayney's clothing and in the body bag in which she was placed after being removed from the grave.

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Glowing DNA invention points towards high speed disease detection

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ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2012) Many diseases, including cancers, leave genetic clues in the body just as criminals leave DNA at the scene of a crime. But tools to detect the DNA-like sickness clues known as miRNAs, tend to be slow and expensive. Now a chemist and a biologist from University of Copenhagen have invented a method that promises to shave days off the lab work done to reveal diseases, using cheap methods and easy to use analytical apparatuses.

Chemistry researcher Tom Vosch and plant molecular biologist Seong Wook Yang invented a DNA sensor, coupling genetic material to a luminous molecule which goes dark only in the presence of a specific target. Details on their invention, Silver Nano cluster DNA-probes, are published in the high profile scientific journal ACS Nano, and Tom Vosch is understandably proud of the invention.

"We invented a probe that emits light only as long as the sample is clean. That is an unusually elegant and easy way to screen for a particular genetic target," says Vosch of the Department of Chemistry's Nano Science Centre.

DNA clues help detect disease

You could say that the inventors took their cue from crime detection. In murder cases police technicians use DNA to identify the killer. Similarly Individuals with disease are likely to have a unique miRNA profile. Any disease that is attacking a patient leaves this genetic clue all over the victim. And because the profiles of miRNAs vary by type of cancer, finding it proves beyond a reasonable doubt what made the patient sick.

Gene magnets stick to opposites

The new detection method exploits a natural quality of genetic material. A single DNA strand is made up of molecules, so called bases, ordered in a unique combination. When two strands join to form their famous double helix, they do so by sticking to complementary copies of themselves. Likewise strands tailored to match particular miRNAs will stick to the real thing with uncanny precision. But detecting this union of the strands was only made possible when Vosch and Yang paired their skills.

A real kill switch

Tom Vosch is specialized in studying molecules that light up. Seong Wook Yang is specialized in miRNA. Together they figured out how to attach the light emitting molecules to DNA sensors for miRNA detection. Vosch and Yang discovered, that when these luminous DNA-strands stick with microRNA-strands, their light is snuffed out, giving a very visible indication that the target miRNA is present in the sample. In other words: When the light goes out, the killer is in the house.

Likely to lead to high speed cancer diagnostics

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Glowing DNA invention points towards high speed disease detection

Posted in DNA

Mystery of DNA decay unravelled

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A new study is finally laying to rest the debate over whether DNA from the age of the dinosaurs could survive to the present day.

Scientists at Murdoch University led a study which shows the rate of DNA degradation and calculates that all bonds in a DNA strand preserved at the ideal temperature of minus five degrees centigrade would be completely destroyed in bone after approximately 6.8 million years.

This figure is incompatible with the idea of finding intact DNA in an 80 million year old dinosaur remnant, as was famously alluded to in the Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park, but is much older than the currently accepted record of 450,000 to 800,000-year-old DNA from Greenlandic ice cores.

Dr Mike Bunce and Dr Morten Allentoft from Murdoch Universitys Ancient DNA lab came to their conclusions after studying 158 fossilised leg bones belonging to three species of the moa, an extinct group of birds that once roamed New Zealand.

It has been agonisingly difficult to estimate the rate of DNA decay before now because finding a large set of DNA-containing fossils with which to make meaningful comparisons are exceedingly rare, said Dr Bunce.

Environmental conditions like temperature, degree of microbial attack and oxygenation, can affect the DNA decay process and make it hard to detect a basic rate of degradation.

The moa bones however have allowed us to study the comparative DNA degradation because they come from different ages from a region where they have all experienced the same environmental conditions.

The fossil bone specimens were carbon dated as being between 600 and 8000 years old and looking at the varying degrees of DNA degradation in each specimen, the team were able to calculate a DNA half-life of 521 years. The half-life is the amount of time taken for an amount of DNA to reach 50 per cent of the starting amount.

The scientists found that the estimated decay rate in the specimens was almost 400 times slower than predicted from simulation experiments carried out in the lab.

Based on these calculations and other investigations, the team were able to make their predictions of DNA survival deeper into time.

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Mystery of DNA decay unravelled

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DNA testing keeps convicted killer's hopes alive

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ST. LOUIS Rodney Lincoln has spent half his life in prison and knows he will spend the rest there, too, unless a sealed Federal Express container en route to Lorton, Va., can unlock his cell.

Inside: A swab of red stain from the front edge of a kitchen sink. A piece of aluminum door frame with a bloody fingerprint. A steak knife and butcher knife, both with blood. A broom. And a piece of tissue paper left near a doorway where the killer fled.

Those are among the physical evidence stored for decades from the gruesome murder of JoAnn Tate and attack on her two young daughters at their St. Louis apartment on April 27, 1982.

Now, with the state's blessing, the evidence will be tested by Bode Technology, in the suburbs of Washington. It specializes in DNA comparisons, science not available at the time of the crime.

The Midwest Innocence Project is paying for the testing, believing the results will not only free Lincoln whose case they've been fighting for years but also point to a particular man it suspects of being the real killer.

Tate's family, however, hopes the tests will put a final stamp on Lincoln's conviction and provide closure.

A GRUESOME CRIME

Police who responded on that spring morning to Tate's apartment on Farrar Street encountered a gory scene.

Tate, 35, was facedown in a pool of blood, fatally stabbed in the chest and sexually assaulted with a broom. The killer delivered 10 stab wounds to Tate's daughter, Melissa, 7, and sliced the throat of Renee, 4.

Melissa feebly told relatives who found them, "Bill did it."

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Posted in DNA

DNA has a 521-year half-life

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Palaeogeneticist Morten Allentoft used the bones of extinct moa birds to calculate the half-life of DNA.

M. Mhl

Few researchers have given credence to claims that samples of dinosaur DNA have survived to the present day, but no one knew just how long it would take for genetic material to fall apart. Now, a study of fossils found in New Zealand is laying the matter to rest and putting paid to hopes of cloning a Tyrannosaurus rex.

After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate.

Determining that rate has been difficult because it is rare to find large sets of DNA-containing fossils with which to make meaningful comparisons. To make matters worse, variable environmental conditions such as temperature, degree of microbial attack and oxygenation alter the speed of the decay process.

But palaeogeneticists led by Morten Allentoft at the University of Copenhagen and Michael Bunce at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, examined 158 DNA-containing leg bones belonging to three species of extinct giant birds called moa. The bones, which were between 600 and 8,000 years old, had been recovered from three sites within 5 kilometres of each other, with nearly identical preservation conditions including a temperature of 13.1 C. The findings are published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B1.

By comparing the specimens' ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.

The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of 5 C, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.

This confirms the widely held suspicion that claims of DNA from dinosaurs and ancient insects trapped in amber are incorrect, says Simon Ho, a computational evolutionary biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. However, although 6.8 million years is nowhere near the age of a dinosaur bone which would be at least 65 million years old We might be able to break the record for the oldest authentic DNA sequence, which currently stands at about half a million years, says Ho.

The calculations in the latest study were quite straightforward, but many questions remain.

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DNA has a 521-year half-life

Posted in DNA

DNA's half-life identified using fossil bones

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We are used to radioactive substances having a half-life, but DNA? Now a study of bones from extinct birds suggests the double helix too has a measurable half-life and that we have underestimated its ability to survive in the fossil record.

"DNA degrades at a certain rate, and it therefore makes sense to talk about a half-life," says Morten Allentoft at Copenhagen University, Denmark, who together with Mike Bunce at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, and colleagues, extracted DNA from the leg bones of 158 extinct flightless birds called moas.

Part of the reason a DNA half-life has been so elusive is that it is hard to find a large enough cache of samples that have been exposed to similar conditions. The moa bones were all between 600 and 8000 years old, and came from a 5-kilometre-wide area of New Zealand's South Island, key factors for helping identify a regular pattern of decay.

With an estimated burial temperature of 13 C, the DNA's half-life was 521 years almost 400 times longer than expected from lab experiments at similar temperatures, says Allentoft.

The oldest DNA to date belongs to insects and plants and was found in 450,000 to 800,000-year-old ice. Under subzero conditions, Allentoft and Bunce estimate that DNA's half-life can be up to 158,000 years, meaning the last remnants would disappear around the 6.8-million-year mark. Allentoft does say that is an optimistic assessment, and doesn't imply that samples of DNA large enough to measure could be extracted from such old bones.

Eva-Maria Geigl at the Jacques Monod institute in Paris, France, is still to be convinced by the half-life claims, which she says rest on statistically weak evidence. She points out, for example, that the correlation relies heavily on the moa bones older than 6000 years when fewer than 10 of the 158 bones are this ancient.

"Old fossils are rare and hence there will be less data in this part of the analysis," says Bunce. "There is nothing we can do about it other than present what we have at hand and clearly, the signal is present. The correlation is highly significant."

If DNA decays in a predictable way, can we calculate the chances of finding it at key sites? Ever since the Indonesian island of Flores yielded remains of the "hobbit", Homo floresiensis in 2004, speculation has been rife that some specimens might contain DNA that would help pin down its position in the human family tree. This notion has been spurred by evidence that the hobbits may have survived until as recently as 18,000 years ago.

Unfortunately, Bunce thinks the new calculations will be difficult to apply to specific sites. "A host of other factors come into play," he says, including the season the organism died. In fact, although the moa bones in the analysis had been buried in a similar environment, the age of the specimens could account for only about 40 per cent of the variation in DNA preservation in other words, the half-life signal is noisy.

Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, agrees. "The rotting process after death is very seasonal and context dependent, and has a major impact on DNA survival."

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DNA's half-life identified using fossil bones

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DNA links Fresno robbery suspects to fatal crash

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DNA from two home-invasion robbery suspects who allegedly stole a truck and then got into a fatal hit-and-run crash will be pivotal evidence in their trial, which started Tuesday, the prosecutor said.

Curtis Travis, 35, and Stephen Stowers, 24, both of Fresno, are on trial for murder, robbery and hit-and-run in the death of Heliodoro Anthony Ruvalcaba, 50, of Fresno, who was killed in January 2011.

Ruvalcaba was on his way home from his janitorial job when he was struck by a truck that Travis and Stowers allegedly stole minutes earlier.

The pair had been at a friend's apartment at 4111 N. Blythe Ave. about 1 a.m. on Jan. 5, 2011.

A short time later, they forced their way into another apartment at the complex, taking a laptop computer, two cellphones, $10 and keys to the resident's pickup, police reports state.

David Ruiz testified Tuesday that he was asleep in the apartment with his wife and two children when Travis and Stowers entered by breaking a window.

After hearing the noise, he went into his living room to investigate and was ordered by the two men to hand over his keys, cash, laptop computer and cellphones. Ruiz said he did so because he feared for the lives of his wife and daughters.

Ruiz described the men as light-skinned and dark-skinned, and he identified Travis as the man who made most of the demands. He could not positively identify Stowers. Travis is white and Stowers is black.

The pair left in Ruiz's 1994 Chevrolet Silverado, running two red lights before speeding about 60 mph eastbound on Ashlan Avenue near Highway 99, police said.

Travis, reportedly the driver, ran red lights at Ashlan and the Highway 99 offramp and hit Ruvalcaba's northbound 1998 Ford Taurus, killing him, police said.

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DNA links Fresno robbery suspects to fatal crash

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DNA dating study kills off Jurassic Park

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Reconstructing dinosaurs from ancient DNA has been dealt a blow with a new study finding genetic material can only last 1 million years.

An international team of researchers reached the finding after analysing DNA extracted from bones of the extinct New Zealand moa.

They found that while short fragments of DNA could possibly survive up to 1 million years, sequences of 30 base pairs or more would only have a half-life of around 158,000 years under certain conditions.

Lead author Dr Morten Allentoft from Murdoch University's Ancient DNA lab in Perth says their results contradict earlier studies which claimed to have extracted DNA fragments several hundred base pairs long from dinosaur bones and preserved insects, claims which underpinned the storyline of the 1993 movieJurassic Park.

"What we show here with the decay rate of DNA is that this is never going to be possible," Dr Allentoft said.

"It may be that you can have extremely short fragments of DNA, only a few base pairs that persist for maybe a million years, maybe even longer."

Dr Allentoft says the earlier findings may have been due to contamination with human DNA.

Rate of decay

The latest study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, also establishes a DNA decay rate which could help identify specimens likely to yield useful genetic material.

It might also one day enable DNA to be used to date bones and teeth or even be used for forensic investigation of human remains.

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DNA dating study kills off Jurassic Park

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Applied DNA Sciences and 3SI Use DNA to Protect Teller Stations

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STONY BROOK, NY--(Marketwire - Oct 9, 2012) - Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. ( OTCBB : APDN ), (Twitter: @APDN), a provider of DNA-based anti-counterfeiting technology and product authentication solutions, announced today that 3SI Security Systems is expanding its use of APDN's SigNature DNA evidence marking product into 3SI smoke and dye cash protection systems used across Europe. First orders, to the banking sector, are already being processed.

3SI Security Systems is a world leader in cash protection systems designed to recover stolen cash and high-value assets, apprehend criminals and deter crime.

The smoke and dye system, called Thinpac, is already in use in over 130,000 locations worldwide, with great success at deterring crime. 3SI called the addition of SigNature DNA marking to the Thinpac "a unique and leading edge security feature which we are happy to be able to offer to our customers." The company points out that "SigNature-DNA-tagged items can be identified unequivocally with a marker unique to a specific Thinpac, and hence unique to a particular crime. Any item, cash or person that comes in contact with the smoke will be marked by the SigNature DNA."

Police forces across Europe are becoming more familiar with the use of unique SigNature DNA markers in cash-protection systems, placing them in a much better position to catch and convict criminals. SigNature DNA provides police with a welcome additional investigative tool, which often reduces the amount of time it takes the police to undertake such investigations.

James Hayward, Chairman and CEO of Applied DNA Sciences, said, "Our SigNature DNA product is now used in many countries across Europe and is increasingly popular with police. One of our best examples of how the police make excellent use of our DNA to catch criminals is in the United Kingdom where 48 criminals have already been convicted and jailed for over 242 years, providing a great deterrent that has helped to significantly reduce the number of Cash in Transit robberies."

SigNature DNA is used to protect approximately 26% of cash movements in the United Kingdom.

Protection of bank tellers adds to APDN's portfolio of cash protection products. 3SI already uses APDN SigNature DNA marks to protect nearly 5,000 ATMs, using a DNA liquid which is placed in ink tanks that are fitted inside individual ATM cassettes. The cassette activates when triggered, marking all the cash inside the ATM and the criminals.

David Stanks, CEO of 3SI Corporation noted, "We have proven that we can significantly extend the value of our solutions by including the SigNature DNA products. This is a logical continuation of our strategy to deter crime and protect people."

About Applied DNA Sciences

APDN is a provider of botanical-DNA based security and authentication solutions that can help protect products, brands and intellectual property of companies, governments and consumers from theft, counterfeiting, fraud and diversion. SigNature DNA and smartDNA, our principal anti-counterfeiting and product authentication solutions that essentially cannot be copied, provide a forensic chain of evidence and can be used to prosecute perpetrators.

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Applied DNA Sciences and 3SI Use DNA to Protect Teller Stations

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Gazette.Net: Goodall talk to be streamed live online Saturday from College Park

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Photo by Michael Neugebauer Jane Goodall sits with Freud, a chimpanzee who lives in the Gombe National Park on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. British born Goodall, who became world famous for her work with chimps, has also been a United Nations Messenger for Peace for 10 years. In 1977 she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which has an office in Vienna, Va., and works to protect all living things.

Biology major Spencer Brodsky from Potomac will be among the more than 1,000 students and academic staff expected to hear Jane Goodall speak Saturday at the University of Maryland in College Park.

A junior, Brodsky hopes to personally ask Goodall what research scientists can do through their work to help the world solve its problems, considering recent cuts to research budgets.

First of all, dont lose hope, says Goodall, who will speak at 1:30 p.m. at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on campus.

Afterwards, Goodall will be available to sign some of the many books she has written that will be available for sale.

The talk, called Making a Difference, is already fully reserved, but a standby line will begin forming at 1 p.m. to fill any empty seats that become available.

Goodalls talk will also be streamed live online with links posted on the University of Maryland website (www.umd.edu or http://www.bsos.umd.edu) just prior to the talk.

Additionally, Discovery Communications, headquartered in Silver Spring, will premiere a two-hour documentary about Goodall called Janes Journey on Animal Planet at 9 p.m. tonight.

Goodall, 78, who lives in England but travels about 300 days a year, is currently visiting universities and other venues around the United States to update people about her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s as part of work on human evolution.

Through persistent observation, she documented their complex social relationships and use of sticks to extract termites for food, challenging previous beliefs that humans were the worlds only toolmakers.

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Gazette.Net: Goodall talk to be streamed live online Saturday from College Park