Monthly Archives: November 2014

Allan Macatuno

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Publication Date : 30-11-2014

The DNA sample of a detained American soldier did not match the traces of DNA obtained from two used condoms at the motel room where transgender Jeffrey Jennifer Laude was found dead, the chief city prosecutor said on Friday.

Olongapo city prosecutor Emilie Fe de los Santos revealed the results of the DNA testing at the continuation of the preliminary hearing for the murder complaint filed by Laudes family against United States Marine Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton.

The soldier is detained at a facility jointly managed by the Philippine and US governments in the Armed Forces of the Philippines general headquarters in Quezon City.

De los Santos said the prosecution panel will issue a resolution on the complaint on Dec 15. She said the panel has two weeks to study the DNA results and additional pieces of evidence.

We have the DNA result, and its negative. It being negative does not mean it will affect our case. It can also mean that it can also help our case, she said.

The condoms were among the items collected from Room 1 of Celzone Lodge, a motel where Laude and a foreigner, whom witnesses identified as Pemberton, had checked in on the night of Oct. 11. Laude was found dead after the foreigner left the room.

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No DNA match in transgender Filipino murder case

More than 35 years after Patricia Rodriguezs body was found with 108 stab wounds in a Lackawanna cemetery, two prosecution witnesses and DNA evidence allegedly linking her estranged husband to the fatal attack were the focus of opening statements Friday at Michael Rodriguezs murder trial.

Assistant Attorney General Diane M. LaVallee said the defendants then-girlfriend will testify that, in a phone conversation early that Good Friday morning of 1979, Rodriquez told her he had killed the 21-year-old mother of his two children.

Defense attorney Paul J. Cambria told the Erie County Court jury that the girlfriend gave two inconsistent statements to authorities, raising questions about her credibility.

LaVallee also said a witness will testify that he saw Michael and Patricia Rodriguez leaving a Lackawanna bar together sometime after 2 that morning and later entering Holy Cross Cemetery.

Cambria questioned that witness ability to identify either of the Rodriguezes that night.

LaVallee also said DNA evidence shows the victims blood was on the jacket the defendant was wearing that night.

Cambria called the DNA evidence completely unreliable, noting that the DNA testing occurred 30 years after the attack and that Lackawanna police may have mixed the jacket with the victims bloody clothing after her body was found.

Michael Rodriguez, 60, of South Buffalo, was indicted last November in the April 13, 1979 slaying of his estranged wife, who was mother of their then-4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.

State police reopened the long-unsolved murder case in 2009 at the request of Lackawanna Police Chief James L. Michel Jr.

In reviewing the cold case, State Police Senior Investigator Christopher S. Weber took a second look at forensic evidence found in the cemetery, used scientific technology that did not exist at the time of the slaying and re-interviewed witnesses.

Excerpt from:
DNA, witnesses are key to case against Rodriguez

In what might sound like a page out of Halle Berrys TV show Extant, scientists at the University of Zurich, have proved that DNA, the building blocks of life, could survive the harsh and extreme conditions in space and still be able to pass on genetic information.

On the Texus-49 research rocket mission, launched from theEsrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden, two scientists conductedan experiment on the role of gravity in the regulation of gene expression in human cells.Dr. Cora Thiel and Professor Oliver Ullrich, both from the University of Zurich, created anexperiment called DARE (DNA atmospheric re-entry experiment) on the TEXUS-49 rocket mission.

For DARE, they applied small double-stranded DNA molecules to the outer shell of the rockets payload section.After the entire sequence was complete launch, space flight and re-entry the plasmid DNA molecules were still found on all the application points on the rocket.

According to the scientists, the DNA that wassalvaged couldtransfer genetic information to bacterial and connective tissue cells.

This study provides experimental evidence that the DNAs genetic information is essentially capable of surviving the extreme conditions of space and the re-entry into Earths dense atmosphere, saidUllrich.

Launch of the TEXUS-49 rocket from Esrange Space Center, Kiruna, Sweden. (Image courtesy of Adrian Mettauer)

The rest is here:
DNA Survives Launch, Flight And Re-entry To Earth

The ability of biomoleculesand entire organismsto survive space has implications for a number of scientific questions: whether molecules from space could have seeded life on Earth, or whether life could spread among the inner planets following impacts. It also has practical implications, in that it dictates how careful we need to be in sterilizing hardware we send to other planets.

Chance gave some biologists access to a rocket, and they figured out a way to answer one of the questions. While prepping a sounding rocket for an experiment that briefly lofted some of their samples to space, they decided to put some DNA on the rocket's exterior. And when it returned to Earth 780 seconds later, they were able to recover the DNA and put it to use.

Sounding rockets are typically used for payloads that only have to be put into space briefly. In this case, the researchers were putting cells into the payload of a VSB-30, a two-stage, solid-fueled rocket manufactured in Brazil. While doing so, they decided it would be interesting to see what happened to samples outside of the protection of the payload. So they obtained some DNA called a plasmid that carried two genes: one that provides antibiotic resistance to bacteria, and a second that encodes a green fluorescent protein.

They placed some of the DNA on the underside of the payload container, in the grooves of some screws on the rocket's surface, and at specific locations on the nose of the vehicle. After all that was done, the VSB-30 was sent on a 13 minute trip from far-northern Sweden to space and back, after which the payload was recovered.

The researchers then simply washed the sites off with a sterile solution and check for the presence of DNA. Despite temperatures that were likely to have briefly reached 1,000 degrees Celsius on the exterior of the rocket, there was still DNA present. And, without any further cleaning up, that DNA could be inserted into bacteria and provide them with antibiotic resistance. When placed into cultured human cells, they glowed green. Sequencing the DNA revealed that it didn't contain more than a handful of mutations, which may or may not be a result of its time in space.

All of which suggests that DNA might be a tougher molecule than it's generally given credit fortough enough to survive re-entry on any hardware that we don't properly sterilize.

PLOSone, 2014. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0112979 (About DOIs).

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DNA survives a ride into spaceon the exterior of a rocket