Daily Archives: June 15, 2013

TAMPA, Fla. Researchers on Friday collected DNA samples from family members of boys who died decades ago at a now-defunct Florida reform school in the hopes it will match the remains found on the property of the now-closed school.

University of South Florida researchers have used historical documents to verify the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children -- ranging in age from 6 to 18 -- between 1914 and 1973 at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Records indicated that 45 individuals were buried on the 1,400-acre tract from 1914 to 1952, while 31 bodies were sent elsewhere for burial.

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USF associate professor Erin Kimmerle said it's unclear whether there are more children buried in unmarked graves on the property. And that's only part of the reason why the researchers are seeking DNA from at least seven family members and asking for state permits to exhume the human remains on the site.

"We're bringing a last measure of human dignity for these boys," said Kimmerle, adding that if there is a DNA match between surviving family members and the remains that it will "fulfill a human right" for the families to bury their loved ones as they wish.

Richard Varnadoe, who is 84, is one such relative. He allowed a Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy to swab the inside of his cheek for DNA Friday in hopes of solving the mystery of what happened to his older brother, Thomas.

"Hopefully we'll get him back," said Varnadoe, who lives in Salt Springs, Fla.

Thomas Varnadoe went to the school when he was 13 and "he lasted 34 days," said Richard Varnadoe. School officials told the family that Thomas died of pneumonia, but they never believed the story -- and never got his body.

"It devastated the whole family," said Varnadoe. "Dad, mother, my sister."

The school was located in Marianna about 60 miles west of Tallahassee and was once the nation's largest reform school, with 698 youths. It closed in 2011.

Originally posted here:
DNA samples could solve mysterious Fla. school deaths

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that human DNA cannot be patented.

Synthetic DNA, unlike naturally occurring DNA, can be patented, however. Isolating the gene and altering it, the court found, does not allow the company to patent the gene.

Utah-based Myriad, which holds two gene patents for breast and ovarian cancer, argued that the extracted human genes were chemically altered and therefor distinct and patentable.

You can read the court's opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, here. Justice Antonin Scalia joined in part and filed a concurring opinion.

Thomas notes that there is always a "delicate balance" when discussing patents:

The rule against patents on naturally occurring things has limits, however. Patent protection strikes a delicate balance between creating "incentives that lead to creation, invention, and discovery" and "imped[ing] the flow of information that might permit, indeed spur, invention."

Hard work, Thomas writes, does not mean the company deserves a patent:

In this case, by contrast, Myriad did not create anything. To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention.

In arguing the case, Myriad may have focused on the wrong part of genome science:

Nor are Myriad's claims saved by the fact that isolating DNA from the human genome severs chemical bonds and thereby creates a nonnaturally occurring molecule. Myriad's claims are simply not expressed in terms of chemical composition, nor do they rely in any way on the chemical changes that result from the isolation of a particular section of DNA.

See the article here:
It's Unanimous: Natural DNA Is Not Patentable

DNA testing has revealed Prince William will become Britain's first king to have proven Indian ancestry.

Genetic experts have found a direct lineage between the Duke of Cambridge and a part-Indian woman called Eliza Newark.

She was a housekeeper for his great-great-great-great-great grandfather Theodore Forbes, a Scottish merchant who worked for the East India Company in Surat, a port north of Bombay.

They had a daughter called Katherine - and it is through an unbroken maternal line to the prince's mother, Princess Diana, that the young royal and his brother Prince Harry have inherited the Indian DNA.

The research was carried out by BritainsDNA, a genetic ancestry testing company.

It showed the second in line to the throne was carrying Eliza's mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) - a small piece of DNA inherited mostly unchanged from a mother to her children.

Scientists said it was "very likely" that Prince William's heirs will also carry a small proportion of Indian DNA from Eliza, whose father may have been of Armenian descent.

Born in 1790, she lived in India when it was governed by the East India Company, and is thought to have had Armenian blood because of her surname.

Dr Jim Wilson, a genetics expert at the University of Edinburgh and chief scientist at BritainsDNA, said it was the fact that she was an Armenian living in Bombay that intrigued him.

He said: "I was wondering if it was possible she was Indian. What was an Armenian doing in Bombay? That's what got me interested."

See the article here:
Prince William: DNA Test Proves Indian Heritage

The Supreme Courts ruling last week, allowing police to compel DNA samples from persons arrested for serious offenses, will solve cold cases around the country and put dangerous criminals behind bars. But despite this clearly beneficial impact, the courts 5 to 4 ruling was wrong and may be more far-reaching than we can now imagine.

The words Antonin Scalia was right do not flow easily for me. But the courts most uncompromising conservative, who wrote a withering dissent, was correct when he issued a dire-sounding warning from the bench: Make no mistake about it: As an entirely predictable consequence of todays decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.

Eugene Robinson

Writes about politics and culture in twice-a-week columns and on the PostPartisan blog.

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Ann Telnaes animation: NSA director James Clapper claims his agency isn't collecting your info.

The case, involving a Maryland law that mandates DNA collection, scrambled the courts ideological seating chart. Scalia, of all people, sided with the liberals, while Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, joined the conservative majority.

Maryland v. King was an appropriate test case. A man named Alonzo King was arrested in 2009 on an assault charge. Police in Wicomico County took a DNA sample by swabbing the inside of his cheek without obtaining a search warrant as permitted under Maryland law. Months later, Kings DNA profile was matched with evidence from a 2003 rape case. He was subsequently tried and convicted of the rape.

Its impossible not to applaud the result: A rapist who otherwise would have escaped justice was made to pay for his heinous crime. But the way this result was obtained, Scalia argued, ignores the Constitution.

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On DNA, Scalia was right

Dec. 10, 2012: White metal crosses mark graves at the cemetery of the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida.Reuters

TAMPA, Fla. Researchers on Friday collected DNA samples from family members of boys who died decades ago at a now-defunct Florida reform school in the hopes it will match the remains found on the property of the now-closed school.

University of South Florida researchers have used historical documents to verify the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children ranging in age from 6 to 18 between 1914 and 1973 at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Records indicated that 45 individuals were buried on the 1,400-acre tract from 1914 to 1952, while 31 bodies were sent elsewhere for burial.

USF associate professor Erin Kimmerle said it's unclear whether there are more children buried in unmarked graves on the property. And that's only part of the reason why the researchers are seeking DNA from at least seven family members and asking for state permits to exhume the human remains on the site.

"We're bringing a last measure of human dignity for these boys," said Kimmerle, adding that if there is a DNA match between surviving family members and the remains that it will "fulfill a human right" for the families to bury their loved ones as they wish.

Richard Varnadoe, who is 84, is one such relative. He allowed a Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy to swab the inside of his cheek for DNA Friday in hopes of solving the mystery of what happened to his older brother, Thomas.

"Hopefully we'll get him back," said Varnadoe, who lives in Salt Springs, Fla.

Thomas Varnadoe went to the school when he was 13 and "he lasted 34 days," said Richard Varnadoe. School officials told the family that Thomas died of pneumonia, but they never believed the story and never got his body.

"It devastated the whole family," said Varnadoe. "Dad, mother, my sister."

The school was located in Marianna about 60 miles west of Tallahassee and was once the nation's largest reform school, with 698 youths. It closed in 2011.

Continued here:
DNA may explain Florida reform school deaths

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) Researchers on Friday collected DNA samples from family members of boys who died decades ago at a now-defunct Florida reform school in the hopes it will match the remains found on the property of the now-closed school.

University of South Florida researchers have used historical documents to verify the deaths of two adult staff members and 96 children ranging in age from 6 to 18 between 1914 and 1973 at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Records indicated that 45 individuals were buried on the 1,400-acre tract from 1914 to 1952, while 31 bodies were sent elsewhere for burial.

USF associate professor Erin Kimmerle said it's unclear whether there are more children buried in unmarked graves on the property. And that's only part of the reason why the researchers are seeking DNA from at least seven family members and asking for state permits to exhume the human remains on the site.

"We're bringing a last measure of human dignity for these boys," said Kimmerle, adding that if there is a DNA match between surviving family members and the remains that it will "fulfill a human right" for the families to bury their loved ones as they wish.

Richard Varnadoe, who is 84, is one such relative. He allowed a Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy to swab the inside of his cheek for DNA Friday in hopes of solving the mystery of what happened to his older brother, Thomas.

"Hopefully we'll get him back," said Varnadoe, who lives in Salt Springs, Fla.

Thomas Varnadoe went to the school when he was 13 and "he lasted 34 days," said Richard Varnadoe. School officials told the family that Thomas died of pneumonia, but they never believed the story and never got his body.

"It devastated the whole family," said Varnadoe. "Dad, mother, my sister."

The school was located in Marianna about 60 miles west of Tallahassee and was once the nation's largest reform school, with 698 youths. It closed in 2011.

The school was plagued by scandal soon after it opened in 1900. Three years later, investigators found children "in irons, just as common criminals."

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DNA samples could solve Fla reform school mystery