Monthly Archives: February 2017

Movie review: "The Space Between Us" is aimed squarely at teens – Anchorage Press

Posted: February 7, 2017 at 9:54 pm

The Space Between Us is apparently a large divide when it comes to describing this silly, romantic, mixed-up movie.

Its an interplanetary adventure as a science-fiction flick with a race against time.

Its a teen romance (involving a girl named Tulsa!) formed around a fish-out-of-water story.

Its a morality play, and its a redemption story.

Its a mess, more than anything, that goes from a convoluted, boring first hour to a second half that is such a heart-on-its-sleeve love story, aimed so squarely at tween girls, that your 12-year-old daughter may walk out of the theater swooning.

That may be the one group of people whose space between their ears will really appreciate The Space Between Us.

Initially set in the very near future, NASA sends a shuttle of astronauts to prep Mars for colonization, but theres a problem: One of them is pregnant. The baby is born on Mars, and the mother dies in childbirth.

That makes Gardner Elliott the first human not born on Earth, and that makes him different.

No. 1: A full gestation in zero-gravity atmosphere means his organs are different than our own, endangering his ever coming home.

No. 2: Sentencing him to live on Mars is a bit of a public-relations nightmare, so his existence is kept a secret from the public.

I know what some may be thinking, but no: The moon landing was not faked.

This whole snafu leaves Gary Oldman, as the architect of this Mars mission, fretting and yelling at people about this massive cover-up, and it leaves a motherless boy stuck with astronauts inside a small space station for the first 16 years of his life.

Asa Butterfield (Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children) already proved his sci-fi teen mettle in Enders Game, and now as Gardner he gets an upgrade to romantic lead.

But it takes forever to get him there in the hands of director Peter Chelsom (Serendipity, Hannah Montana: The Movie).

Between Oldmans rants down on Earth, Mars mother-figure Carla Guginos sentimental concerns for the boy and Gardners repeated questions Whats Earth like? Whats your favorite thing about Earth? Will I know how to act on Earth? that the only thing that kept me from snoring was thinking out loud: When are you going to get this boy on Earth?

The movie never really takes off until we get Gardner in front of Tulsa, the teen girl in Colorado hes been secretly future-texting from Mars, where the wi-fi is red planet-hot.

Tulsa is played by Britt Robertson, who was the one good thing about Tomorrowland and who, at 26, is so pretty that she can make us believe shes still in high school.

It turns out that she was abandoned at age 4 in Tulsa, and the orphan girl adopted the city as her nickname.

So we can see that bond start to form: Both Gardner and Tulsa grew up without parents, forced to live with strangers who didnt always tell them the truth.

Butterfield brings an awkward, goofy, somewhat cute manner to his discovery of Earth things both large and small, from crawly bugs to homeless people to Robertsons lips.

Robertson, playing the street-smart girl who can steal a car as easily as she takes off in a crop-dusting plane, brings a blushing sweetness to her tough chick, whose defenses weaken in the presence of a true innocent.

After a sloooow-developing period of great length, its remarkable that the final act is as moving in a sappy kind of way as it is. Admittedly, my 12-year-old daughter may have coaxed that feeling along.

She and her friends are the audience for The Space Between Us, and those accompanying them will just have to grin and bear it.

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Movie review: "The Space Between Us" is aimed squarely at teens - Anchorage Press

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‘Amazing Stories of the Space Age’: Q&A with Author Rod Pyle – Space.com

Posted: at 9:54 pm

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) is one of the space missions discussed in Rod Pyle's new book, "Amazing Stories of the Space Age," now on sale.

A new book brings together tales of the most bizarre and incredible space missions ever conceived. The book's author (and regular Space.com contributor), Rod Pyle, talked with Space.com via email about these amazing space missions and what they can tell us about the future of spaceflight.

The book, "Amazing Stories of the Space Age: True Tales of Nazis in Orbit, Soldiers on the Moon, Orphaned Martian Robots, and Other Fascinating Accounts from the Annals of Spaceflight," is now available in paperbackand as an e-book. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

"Amazing Stories of the Space Age: True Tales of Nazis in Orbit, Soldiers on the Moon, Orphaned Martian Robots, and Other Fascinating Accounts from the Annals of Spaceflight," by Rod Pyle.

Space.com: This book is a collection of stories about strange and amazing spaceflight missions and ideas for missions. To give our readers an idea of the kinds of things covered in the book, can you briefly describe one of your favorite "amazing storie," or one of the missions you find really fascinating?

Rod Pyle: I love them all, of course, but one that touches my heart is about the final days of the Viking 1 Mars lander. Two Viking spacecraft, each comprised of an orbiter and a lander, headed off to the Red Planet in 1975, arriving in 1976. After studying the surface from orbit, the flight controllers committed Viking 1 to a landing on July 20, 1976. They could only infer what the surface might be like from relatively low-resolution imaging, but they met with luck twice: first with this landing, and then with Viking 2 about six weeks. The folks at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) still marvel at the accomplishment. After a long and successful campaign of great science, one by one, the Vikings went dark, and by late 1982, only Viking 1 was still transmitting, sending daily weather reports to Earth. At six years into the mission, however, the lander was experiencing some battery issues similar to what had ended the Viking 2 landers mission. The programmer assigned to the mission wrote some new software to optimize the battery charging cycles and uplinked it to the lander, where it was dutifully recorded onto the computers tape-drive memory. Unfortunately, it overwrote an instruction set responsible for keeping the radio dish oriented toward the Earth, and the lander fell silent. JPL tried to regain contact for months, to no avail. The team was devastated. And because the lander had a nuclear power supply, we have no idea how long it waited for a final message that would never arrive

Space.com: Some of these missions seem as though they would have left a very short paper trail, and some of them have just barely become declassified. How did you go about finding all of these?

Pyle: This is true in many cases. While it's simple to buy a copy of something like [rocket pioneer] Wernher von Brauns "The Mars Project," getting more in-depth data on many of these programs was far more complicated. To add to the adventure, some have only been fully declassified in the past few years. For example, much of the material on the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory was posted in the National Reconnaissance Office's online archives in 2015. Other programs have been extensively studied in academic papers that are available. Still others exist only as documents from the era, or even as hearsay that must be vetted by sources familiar with the program and the time frame the Soviet-era stories were the toughest. But this is in part what made it such a compelling book project."

Space.com: You've been a spaceflight historian for quite a while, so I imagine you've been collecting these stories for some time. When and why did you decide to put them all in a book?

Pyle: I've been writing books about spaceflight since 2003. Prior to that, I was working in documentary television, and would steer projects towards space-related subjects whenever possible. This book originated as a pitch to a cable network for a show called "Secrets of Space" in the early 2000s. We got close a few times but were never able to begin production. The pitch languished for some time, and I decided about five years ago to recast it as a book, which would allow for a much deeper dive into the subject matter a huge plus. My agent made a deal with the good folks at Prometheus Books, and off we went.

Space.com: Of all the stories in your book that stood out to me, I think perhaps the most incredible was the idea in the late 1950s that the U.S. would have a military base on the moon and would actually be fighting moon wars against Russian moon armies within a decade. You even mention in the book that this may sound incredible, but that's just a testament to how intense the Cold War was. Were most people really convinced that spaceflight would advance at such a rapid clip? When do you think people started to realize that wouldn't be the case?

Pyle: Project Horizon was a 1959 U.S. Army study for a militarized moon base. It was pretty much [dead on arrival] when it was submitted, since things were moving in another direction by then NASA was a new civil space agency, and von Braun, who had worked on the Project Horizon study, had transferred there from the Army. When reading the Project Horizon proposal, I had to chuckle at some of the assumptions made the Redstone Arsenal [what is now ;NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama] was just developing the Saturn I rocket and the flight rates and amount of cargo needed to build the Horizon base would have been staggering on the order of 150+ boosters, including spares.

All this would need to be transported to Christmas Island [also known as Kiritimati, part of the Republic of Kiribati] in the central Pacific, where the equatorially based launch site would be, and everything would have to go perfectly to be anywhere near their scheduled time of completion, about 1965 to 1966. The budgeted cost was about $6 billion in 1959 dollars. Later, as NASA began to look hard at their manned lunar mission options, especially direct ascent versus Earth orbit rendezvous, it began to sink in just how difficult this could all be. Of course, Project Horizon was a filing-cabinet item by then; it was, to my knowledge, not taken seriously after being submitted in 1959, and von Braun, as mentioned, had moved on.

Today, when you look at all 363 feet [111 meters] of a Saturn V moon rocket, and realize that only the last 13 feet [4 m] of it returned home from the moon, plans like Horizon feel like studies in technological hubris. But it would have been magnificent, had it worked, and one must admire the determination of the planners.

Space.com: On that same point, your book is a great illustration that some of the biggest leaps of spaceflight tech have come along because they had military motivations. Would you say it's true that the greatest spaceflight accomplishments of the 20th century were motivated by war and world dominance? Do you think that can change or is changing in the 21st century?

Pyle: Most of the unflown mission designs in the book were of military or quasi-military origins, with the one major exception being Project Orion, the atomic rocket. The late 1940s and early 1950s were a time of great paranoia and increasing fear. The United States had exited World War II as the sole power possessing nuclear weapons a comfortable position to be in at the time. Within a handful of years, thanks to clever physicists and good espionage, the Soviet Union had developed and tested both atomic and hydrogen bombs. At the time say, through the mid-1950s the only way to deliver such weapons was with lumbering, slow bomber aircraft. But what if some clever folks built rockets big enough to fling them across the globe at ballistic speeds, or placed them in an orbiting station that could drop them on U.S. targets at will? This was a huge concern.

So the plans for the Horizon lunar base, the Air Force's Lunex base, von Braun's inflatable "wheel" space station, the Dyna-Soar rocket plane and many others were based, at least in part, on this paranoia and the desire to seize the "high ground," however each branch of the military perceived that. And, of course, although Apollo was a civilian program, we know that it was born of geopolitics and the Kennedy administration's desire to find a pursuit in space in which we could assure a win over the Soviet Union something that would demonstrate the superiority of our technology, our political system and our people. A crewed lunar landing was the answer. This program, called Project Apollo, was almost curtailed many times, and it continues to astound me that it all worked, and within the decade.

I see great promise for a different outcome in the 21st century, a blending of international collaboration, commercial/government partnerships and private competition (mostly in the U.S. for the next decade) in space exploration and development.

Space.com: There are also some stories in your book about projections in the 1960s that humans would visit other planets by the 1980s. The fact that those estimates were wildly off target makes me feel nervous about NASA's current plans to get humans to Mars by the 2030s. Does learning about the history of humanity trying to get past the moon make you feel hopeful for future solar system exploration, or does it mostly inspire caution?

Pyle: What an interesting question! It was all so much simpler when von Braun penned "The Mars Project" in 1953 We thought that Mars might have a sufficiently dense atmosphere to support a gliding landing of his huge space-shuttle-like landing craft, that we could cross the gulf between Earth and Mars with a 10-ship armada of taxpayer-funded behemoths, and it would all proceed much like a submarine journey under the North Pole (which occurred in 1958).

But we soon learned that Mars was much more hostile than we had suspected, that Venus was a hell planet and that the moon, while far closer than either, was still a tremendous challenge. And as we continue to study the deep-space environment and microgravity, we find that we, the frail beings who evolved to live perfectly on the surface of our planet and nowhere else, are at great peril when journeying in space for extended periods. So, during the space race we learned much about spaceflight and the associated engineering and scientific issues involved, but this was the low-hanging fruit.

From here on out, the exploration of the solar system gets much harder. And a few hardy U.S.-based billionaires aside, our greatest enemy seems to be a lack of cohesive direction and the dogged determination to forge ahead, in my opinion. As [retired NASA Flight Director] Gene Kranz said to me at the end of an interview a few years back, as he fixed me with that steely eyed missile-man stare, "What America will dare, America can do." I think he's right, and for more than just America. Today, I might rephrase it as, "We know what we can do. What will we dare?"

Space.com: In Chapter 4, you talk about General Atomics, which was a commercial company that wanted to build a brand-new kind of rocket to get humans into space. Would you call this company a predecessor to companies like SpaceX? (While private companies have been involved in spaceflight since its inception, I'm asking if there's a similarity, because most of those companies contribute to existing human spaceflight missions rather than trying to initiate their own.)

Pyle: The idea of nuclear-pulse propulsion originated from Los Alamos [National Laboratory] in 1947 as a paper outlining an unmanned spacecraft. It was then restarted at General Atomics in 1958 on a slim budget, funded internally. It soon became clear that this was going to require more resources, and federal dollars became involved. It did begin in a fashion not entirely dissimilar from efforts such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, but without sexy billionaires at the helm it was a corporate decision.

Later that same year, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, (DARPA's predecessor) committed to spending a million dollars per year on the project, and soon, the Air Force took over funding, seeing military potential in the program. The studies continued with more engineers and physicists involved, and the plan was to launch a giant crewed spacecraft ranging from 10,000 to a million tons, from Nevada, using nuclear explosions. [Theoretical physicist and mathematician] Freeman Dyson calculated that only a few lives would be lost per launch from fallout, far less than a week of automotive accident deaths in the U.S. The idea was tested with small-scale models called "putt-putts" and appeared to work, but ultimately, the scale of the project and the politics of raw nuclear pollution resulting from the launches doomed it.

NASA did later look hard at launching a far smaller version of Orion on a Saturn V, which would initiate atomic explosions only after it had left the atmosphere. But by then, the Apollo program was front and center, and Project Orion was discontinued. I'll add that Dyson's motto was "Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970" a spectacular notion. It could have changed the course of human space exploration!

Space.com: Your book takes a look back at 20th century spaceflight and highlights some of the really grand, inspiring visions that people had for missions and technologies. Those people weren't cranks, either; even if Project Orion or some of von Braun's grander visions never got off the ground, the community still did amazing things. So do you think people are still dreaming at the same scale that they were in the first few decades of spaceflight? Is there room to dream up things like Project Orion and military bases on the moon?

Pyle: Is there ever! And we are, thankfully, somewhat less focused on the military aspect, though defense projects are still quietly well-funded. When I heard Elon Musk's talk at Guadalajara last September, when he announced SpaceX's plans to go to Mars, I was thrilled. I had expected something along those general lines, but the sheer scale of it, and the raw will and determination behind it, gives me great hope. He may never pull it off at the scale he outlined (though I, for one, would never bet against him), but the mere fact that he is willing to put this grand, almost utopian vision out there, and use his own money to seed it, is wonderful.

Ditto Jeff Bezos and his colonization plans for space, along with smaller companies like Bigelow, Sierra Nevada and all the rest. And, of course, other countries' programs the European Space Agency's Moon Village, Chinas ambitious plans for human flights to the moon and Mars, and other national space efforts are inspiring. It will be a wonderful time in space exploration and development the forward-looking visions of the 20th century may come true, in some form, at last.

Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Will Biotechnology Regulations Squelch Food and Farming Innovation? – Genetic Literacy Project

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Jon Entine, Executive Director, Genetic Literacy Project,oversaw the assignments and the editing of this series

INTRODUCTION:

Genetically engineered crops and animals (GMOs) have been a controversial public issue since the first products were introduced in the 1990s. They have posed unique challenges for governments to regulate. Although most working scientists in the field hold the opinion that genetic engineering, for the most part, is part of a continuum of the human manipulation of our food supply thats gone on for thousands of years, critics contend differently.

Many crop biotechnology skeptics frame their concerns in quasi-religious terms, as a violation of nature or fears that the increased use of GE foods will lead to a corporate takeover of our seed and food systems, and the adoption of an ecologically destructive industrialized agriculture system. GMOs have become a symbol of the battle over what our global, regional and local food systems should look like going forward.

The clout of the food movement that vocally rejects many aspects of conventional farming has exponentially increased since then, promoted by mainstream journalists, scientists and non-profit groups from Michael Pollan to Consumers Union to the Environmental Working Group. Organic leaders and lobbyists, such as Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Organics and Just Label It, openly demonize conventional food and farming in defiance of their commitments agreed to in the 1990s that organic food would not be promoted at the expense of conventional agriculture. Attempts to reign in the unchecked influence of the conventional food critics have repeatedly failed; over much of the past decade, theyve had a sympathetic ear in Washington. Partly in response to the prevailing winds, the USDA has evolved increasingly byzantine regulatory structures when it comes to new GE products.

The Genetic Literacy Project 10-part series Beyond the Science II (Beyond the Science I can be viewed here) commences with this introductory article. Leading scientists, journalists and social scientists explore the ramifications of genetic engineering and so-called new breeding technologies (NBTs), specifically gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR. We will post two articles each week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, over the next 5 weeks.

Regulation is at the heart of this ongoing debate. Many scientists and entrepreneurs have come to view the two key agencies regulating GE in the United States the Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture as places where innovation goes to die. Thats an exaggeration, but not without some truth; regulations are inherently political, and the winds have been blowing against technological breakthroughs in agriculture for much of the last decade. On average, it takes upwards of $125 million and 7-10 years for the Agriculture Department to approve a trait, exhausting almost half of a new products 20-year patent protection. No wonder the agricultural sector is consolidating, and most new products are innovated by larger corporations.

The regulatory climate may be changing, perhaps radically, in the United States and possibly in the United Kingdom, as the result of recent elections.

Many of the old rules and regulations regulating GE crops were set up in the 1980s and early 1990s. They are arguably creaky, overly-restrictive and do not account for dramatic increases in our understanding of how genetic engineering works and the now clear consensus on their safety.

Now with NBTs, which are largely unregulated since the techniques were not foreseen 30 years ago when regulations were first formulated, agricultural genetic research is at an inflection point: Will governments make the same mistake that they did previously and regulate innovation almost out of existence, or will they incorporate reasonable risk-risk and risk-benefit calculations in evaluating which technological advances should proceed with limited regulations?

Decisions on these issues will shape not only food and farming in Europe, North America and the industrialized nations, but the food insecure developing world, which looks to the West for regulatory guidance.

Gene Editing and Animals

The second article in our series, by University of California animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam, addresses the challenges of regulating genetically engineered animals. She focuses on dehorned cows, which have been developed without gene editing over many years with, at times, less than optimal results. Should gene editing be evaluated on a case-by-case basis triggered by the novelty of the traits, or should the entire process be heavily regulated the general approach favored by the European Union in regulating more conventional genetic engineering?

Pesticide Debate: How Should Agricultural Chemicals Be Regulated to Encourage Sustainability?

Dave Walton, an Iowa farmer, discusses the brouhaha that has erupted in recent years over the use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weed killer originally developed under patent by Monsanto. Many GMO critics are now expressing concerns over pesticide use in conventional agriculture, using glyphosate as a proxy for attacking the technology. Are their concerns appropriate? Walton, who grows both GE and non-GE crops and is director of the Iowa Soybean Association, has used glyphosate on his farm since the introduction of herbicide resistant crops in 1996. He uses on average a soda-sized cup of glyphosate per acre, and the use of the herbicide has allowed him to switch from more toxic chemicals. Most strikingly he discusses the sustainability impact if a glyphosate ban is imposed, as many activists are calling for.

Plant pathologist Steve Savage challenges us to think in a more nuanced way about a popular belief that organic farming is ecologically superior to conventional agriculture. The Agricultural Department has been a fractious mess in recent years in its efforts to oversee and encourage new breeding technologies. When the Clinton administration oversaw the founding of the National Organics Standards Board in 1995, USDA officials extracted the commitment from organic industry that the alternative farming system would not be promoted at the expense of conventional agriculture. After all, study after study, then and now, has established that organic farming offers no safety nor clear ecological benefits.

Let me be clear about one thing, said former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman in December 2000. The organic label is not a statement about food safety, nor is organic a value judgment about nutrition or quality.

But thats not whats happened.

Regulations and the NGO Problem in Africa and Asia

While GE crops were pioneered in the United States and embraced in other western coun- tries outside of Europe, there has been resistance in regions of the world where these innovations could arguably bring the most impact: Africa and poorer sections of Asia. Ma- haletchumy Arujanan, executive director of Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre and editor-in-chief of The Petri Dish, the first science newspaper in Malaysia, takes on the emerging Asian food security crisis posed by a parallel rise in population and living (and food consumption) standards. She reviews the successes and failures in various countries, and the effective campaigns by anti-GMO NGOs, mostly European funded, to block further biotech innovation.

Margaret Karembu, director of International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications, Africa regional office (ISSSA) AfriCenter based in Nairobi, has found a similar pattern of mostly European-funded NGOs attempting to sabotage research and spread misinformation about the basic science of crop biotechnology. Africa is the ultimate organic experiment, and farmers have failed miserably using family agro-ecology techniques for decades. Cracks are beginning to form in the anti-GMO wall erected across the continent and there are hopes that young people will be attracted to farming, lured by the introduction of GE crops and other innovations.

Public Opinion and GMOs

Brandon McFadden, assistant professor in the Food and Resource Economics Department, University of Florida, addresses the complex views of consumers regarding innovation and GE foods. The public has a widely distorted perception of what genetic engineering entails, which helps explain why consumers remain so skeptical about technological innovation in farming.

Julie Kelly, a contributing writer to numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, National Review and the GLP, takes on Hollywood in her analysis of the celebrity embrace of the anti-GMO movement. Who are the movers and shakers manipulating public opinion in favor of the organic movement and against conventional agriculture? Is the celebrity-backed science misinformation campaign working?

Future of GM Research and How the Public Debate May Evolve

Paul Vincelli, extension professor and Provosts Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Kentucky, has been perturbed about the attack on independent university researchers for working with the biotechnology industry over the years. By law, land grant university scientists are required to work with all stakeholders, particularly corporations who are developing the products used by farmers, including organic farmers. No, scientists who partner with corporations in research and product development are not shills. He rejects the knee jerk belief, advanced by many activist critics of GE crops, that corporate funding necessarily corruptsscience and should be banned.

Finally, risk expert David Ropeik has an optimistic take on the future. He believes 2016 may have been a turning point in the debate over GE foods. Technology rejectionists, from Greenpeace to labeling activists, are sounding increasingly shrill and less scientific. Gene editing, he believes, could undercut claims that GE foods are unsafe because they are unnatural. He is convinced, perhaps optimistically, that GE opponents will soon be viewed as science denialists.

We will see.

Anti-GMO critics cite opinion polls and the votes of anti-GMO legislators in Europe and elsewhere as proof that genetic engineering should be curtailed and more heavily regulated. Thats a rickety platform if one believes in science, however; science is not a popularity contest.

The Genetic Literacy Project is a 501(c)(3) non profit dedicated to helping the public, journalists, policy makers and scientists better communicate the advances and ethical and technological challenges ushered in by the biotechnology and genetics revolution, addressing both human genetics and food and farming. We are one of two websites overseen by the Science Literacy Project; our sister site, the Epigenetics Literacy Project, addresses the challenges surrounding emerging data-rich technologies.Jon Entineis the founder of the Science Literacy Project.

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Medical College of Wisconsin names new director for human genetics center – Milwaukee Business Journal

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Medical College of Wisconsin names new director for human genetics center
Milwaukee Business Journal
At the Mayo college in Rochester, Minn., Urrutia is a professor in the departments of biochemistry and molecular biology, biophysics and medicine. He is director of epigenomics education and academic relationships in the epigenomics program of the Mayo ...

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Studies point way to precision therapies for common class of genetic … – Medical Xpress

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February 7, 2017 by Adam Hadhazy Two Princeton University studies are opening important new windows into understanding an untreatable group of common genetic disorders known as RASopathies that affect approximately one child out of 1,000 and are characterized by distinct facial features, developmental delays, cognitive impairment and heart problems. The researchers observed in zebrafish and fruit fly embryos how cancer-related mutations in the RAS pathway a biochemical system cells use to transmit information from their exterior to their interior caused severe deformations. Fruit-fly embryos (above) showed how signals at the early stage of development (red in top photo) activate genes (purple in middle photo) and pattern structures in the fly larva (bottom photo.) . Credit: Stanislav Shvartsman, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Two Princeton University studies are opening important new windows into understanding an untreatable group of common genetic disorders known as RASopathies that are characterized by distinct facial features, developmental delays, cognitive impairment and heart problems. The findings could help point the way toward personalized precision therapies for these conditions.

Although not widely known, RASopathies are among the most common genetic disorders, affecting approximately one child out of 1,000. RASopathies are caused by mutations within the RAS pathway, a biochemical system cells use to transmit information from their exterior to their interior.

"Human development is very complex and it's amazing that it goes right so often. However, there are certain cases where it does not, as with RASopathies," said Granton Jindal, co-lead author of the two studies. Both Jindal and the other co-lead author, Yogesh Goyal, are graduate students in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics (LSI). Jindal and Goyal do their thesis research in the lab of Stanislav Shvartsman, professor of chemical and biological engineering and LSI.

"Our new studies are helping to explain the mechanisms underlying these disorders," Jindal said.

These studies were published this year, one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and the other in Nature Genetics online. The researchers made the discoveries in zebrafish and fruit fliesanimals commonly used as simplified models of human genetics and Jindal and Goyal's specialties, respectively. Due to the evolutionary similarities in the RAS pathway across diverse species, changes in this pathway would also be similar. Thus, it is likely that significant parts of findings in animals would apply to humans as well, although further research is needed to confirm this.

The first paper published Jan. 3 in PNAS presented a way to rank the severity of different mutations involved in RASopathies. The researchers introduced 16 mutations one at a time in developing zebrafish embryos. As each organism developed, clear differences in the embryos' shapes became evident, revealing the strength of each mutation. The same mutant proteins produced similarly varying degrees of defects in fruit flies. Some of the mutations the researchers tested were already known to be involved in human cancers. The researchers noted that these cancer-related mutations caused more severe deformations in the embryos, aligning with the medical community's ongoing efforts to adapt anti-cancer compounds to treat RASopathies.

"Until now, there was no systematic way of comparing different mutation severities for RASopathies effectively," Goyal said.

Jindal added, "This study is an important step for personalized medicine in determining a diagnosis to a first approximation." The study therefore suggested a path forward to human diagnostic advances, potentially enabling health care professionals to offer better diagnoses and inform caretakers about patients' disease progression.

The study went further and examined the use of an experimental cancer-fighting drug being investigated as a possible way to treat RASopathies. The researchers demonstrated that the amount of medication necessary to correct the developmental defects in the zebrafish embryos corresponded with the mutation's severitymore severe mutations required higher dosages.

The more recent paper, published online by Nature Genetics Feb. 6, reports an unexpected twist in treatment approach to some RASopathies. Like all cellular pathways, the RAS pathway is a series of molecular interactions that changes a cell's condition. Conventional wisdom has held that RASopathies are triggered by overactive RAS pathways, which a biologist would call excessive signaling.

The Nature Genetics study, however, found that some RASopathies could result from insufficient signaling along the RAS pathway in certain regions of the body. This means that drugs intended to treat RASopathies by tamping down RAS pathway signaling might actually make certain defects worse.

"To our knowledge, our study is the first to find lower signaling levels that correspond to a RASopathy disease," Goyal said. "Drugs under development are primarily RAS-pathway inhibitors aimed at reducing the higher activity, so maybe we need to design drugs that only target specific affected tissues, or investigate alternative, novel treatment options."

The Nature Genetics study also found that RAS pathway mutations cause defects by changing the timing and specific locations of embryonic development. For example, in normal fruit fly cells, the RAS pathway only turns on when certain natural cues are received from outside the cell. In the mutant cells, however, the RAS pathway in certain parts of fly embryo abnormally activated before these cues were received. This early activation disturbed the delicate process of embryonic development. The researchers found similar behavior in zebrafish cells.

"Our integrative approach has allowed us to make enormous progress in understanding RASopathies, some of which have just been identified in the last couple of decades," Shvartsman said. "With continued steps forward in both basic and applied science, as we've shown with our new publications, we hope to develop new ideas for understanding and treatment of a large class of developmental defects."

Princeton co-authors of the two papers include Trudi Schpbach, the Henry Fairfield Osborn Professor of Biology and professor of molecular biology, and Rebecca Burdine, an associate professor of molecular biology, as well as co-advisers to Goyal and Jindal; Alan Futran, a former graduate student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and LSI; graduate student Eyan Yeung of the Department of Molecular Biology and LSI; Jos Pelliccia, a graduate student in the Department of Molecular Biology; seniors in molecular biology Iason Kountouridis and Kei Yamaya; and Courtney Balgobin Class of 2015.

Bruce Gelb, a pediatric cardiologist specializing in cardiovascular genetics and the director of the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, described the two new studies as "wonderful" in advancing the understanding of altered biology in RASopathies and developing a framework for comparing mutation strengths, bringing effective treatments significantly closer.

"At this time, most of the issues that arise from the RASopathies are either addressed symptomatically or cannot be addressed," Gelb said. "The work [these researchers] are undertaking could lead to true therapies for the underlying problem."

Explore further: New insight into RASopathy-associated lymphatic defects

More information: Granton A. Jindal et al. In vivo severity ranking of Ras pathway mutations associated with developmental disorders, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1615651114

Yogesh Goyal et al. Divergent effects of intrinsically active MEK variants on developmental Ras signaling, Nature Genetics (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ng.3780

The RAS pathway is a cellular signaling pathway that regulates growth and development in humans. RASopathies are a group of diseases characterized by defects in RAS signaling.

Researchers have successfully targeted an important molecular pathway that fuels a variety of cancers and related developmental syndromes called "Rasopathies."

Investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have identified a developmental cause of adult-onset cardiac hypertrophy, a dangerous thickening of the heart muscle that can lead to heart failure and death. ...

Different genetic mistakes driving skin cancer may affect how patients respond to the drug vemurafenib, providing grounds to screen people with melanoma skin cancer before treatment, a new study by Cancer Research UK scientists ...

May 5, 2016A cell-to-cell signaling network that serves as a developmental timer could provide a framework for better understanding the mechanisms underlying human heart valve disease, say University of Oregon scientists.

It's been more than 10 years since Japanese researchers Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D., and his graduate student Kazutoshi Takahashi, Ph.D., developed the breakthrough technique to return any adult cell to its earliest stage ...

Two Princeton University studies are opening important new windows into understanding an untreatable group of common genetic disorders known as RASopathies that are characterized by distinct facial features, developmental ...

The world's biggest study into an individual's genetic make-up and the risk of developing lung disease could allow scientists to more accurately 'predict' - based on genes and smoking - your chance of developing COPD, a deadly ...

A poor diet during pregnancy can cause biological changes that last throughout life, according to research from Imperial College London.

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a gene that protects the gut from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

In the largest, deepest search to date, the international Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) Consortium has uncovered 83 new DNA changes that affect human height. These changes are uncommon or rare, but ...

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Studies point way to precision therapies for common class of genetic ... - Medical Xpress

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Police turn to DNA phenotyping as experts attempt to put a face on crime – The Denver Channel

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High Wind Warningissued February 7 at 6:02PM MST expiring February 8 at 2:00PM MST in effect for: Alamosa, Costilla, Custer, El Paso, Fremont, Huerfano, Las Animas, Pueblo, Saguache, Teller

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Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 9:09PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Chaffee, Conejos, Lake, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache

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Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:02PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Jefferson, Larimer, Park, Summit

Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:02PM MST expiring February 8 at 6:00PM MST in effect for: Grand, Jackson

Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 3:39AM MST expiring February 8 at 12:00PM MST in effect for: Delta, Garfield, Mesa, Montrose, Ouray, Rio Blanco, San Miguel

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Winter Storm Watchissued February 5 at 12:17AM MST expiring February 8 at 12:00PM MST in effect for: Archuleta, Delta, Dolores, Eagle, Garfield, Gunnison, Hinsdale, La Plata, Mesa, Moffat, Montezuma, Montrose, Ouray, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt, San Juan, San Miguel

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Police turn to DNA phenotyping as experts attempt to put a face on crime - The Denver Channel

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How life survives: Researchers confirm basic mechanism of DNA repair – Phys.Org

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February 7, 2017 by Mark Derewicz Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Day in and day out, in our bodies, the DNA in cells is damaged for a variety of reasons, and thus intercellular DNA-repair systems are fundamental to the maintenance of life. Now scientists from the UNC School of Medicine have confirmed and clarified key molecular details of one of these repair systems, known as nucleotide excision repair.

Using an advanced sequencing technique to map and analyze DNA damage, the scientists demonstrated the functions in bacterial cells of two important excision repair proteins: Mfd and UvrD.

"The biochemical mechanisms of these proteins have been known for years from experiments involving purified protein and DNA, and that's very important, but in this new work we've clarified these proteins' roles in living cells," said co-senior author Christopher P. Selby, PhD, research assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UNC.

"Ultimately, this better understanding of bacterial DNA repair could be useful toward the development of antibacterial drugs," said co-senior author Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UNC.

The research publishes this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Sancar was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research in the 1980s and early 1990s on excision repair in bacteria and in human cells. This repair process, which also occurs in animal cells, fixes one of the most common forms of DNA damage: the bulky adduct, an unwanted chemical modification of DNA typically caused by a toxin or ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

To study excision repair in cells, Sancar, Selby and colleagues recently developed a new technique, XR-seq, which allows investigators to isolate and sequence the small lengths of adduct-damaged DNA that are snipped from the genome during the excision repair process. Knowing the sequences of these DNA snippets allows their locations in the genome to be mapped precisely. They used this method first in 2015 to generate a UV repair map of the human genome, and in 2016 they used the XR-seq method to generate the damage and repair maps of the anticancer cisplatin drug for the entire human genome. Now they have applied this method to answer some fundamental questions about damage repair in E. coli with the potential of developing novel antibiotic drugs.

The un-sticker: Mfd

In this study, which was also led by postdoctoral research associate Ogun Adebali, PhD, the researchers focused largely on Mfd, a protein known from prior work by Sancar and Selby to have a special - and mechanistically unusual - role in excision repair in bacteria.

"I think Mfd is the most interesting protein in E. coli," Selby said. Here's why: When the DNA of a bacterial gene is being transcribed into RNA, and the molecular machinery of transcription gets stuck at a bulky adduct, Mfd appears on the scene, recruits other repair proteins that snip away the damaged section of DNA, and "un-sticks" the transcription machinery so that it can resume its work. This Mfd-guided process is called transcription-coupled repair, and it accounts for a much higher rate of excision repair on strands of DNA that are being actively transcribed.

Using XR-seq to map UV-induced damage in E. coli bacteria cells, the researchers found clear evidence of transcription-coupled repair in normal cells, but not in cells that lack Mfd, thus confirming the protein's role in the process.

The unwinder: UvrD

In further experiments, the researchers defined the role of an accessory excision repair protein in E. coli - UvrD, which helps clear away each excised segment of damaged DNA.

In the absence of UvrD, the excised piece of DNA remains bound to the chromosomal DNA, making it hard for cellular waste-disposal enzymes to chop it up. At the same time, the repair proteins that excised the strand tend to remain stuck to it, and are thus kept from moving on to excise other bits of damaged DNA. UvrD's job is to unwind these damaged and discarded strands from chromosomal DNA, so that they can be disposed of quickly and the associated repair proteins can go on to catalyze additional rounds of repair.

Using XR-seq on UV-damaged E. coli cells, the UNC team confirmed that without UvrD, excised DNA fragments remain stuck to chromosomal DNA, survive much longer in cells, and - by holding onto excision repair proteins - slow down the overall rate of excision repair in cells.

In addition to clarifying the roles of Mfd and UvrD, the research generally heralds the use of the new XR-seq technique in mapping and studying excision repair processes.

"XR-seq provides a new type of sequence data, and in this work we've provided for the first time a genome-wide map of excision repair in a bacterium," said Adebali. "We think this map will be broadly useful to the scientific community."

The researchers now plan further studies using XR-seq in bacterial cells, as well as in human and other mammalian cells where the process of excision repair is less understood.

Explore further: Researchers create DNA repair map of the entire human genome

More information: Ogun Adebali et al, Genome-wide transcription-coupled repair inis mediated by the Mfd translocase, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1700230114

When the common chemotherapy drugs cisplatin or oxaliplatin hit cancer cells, they damage DNA so that the cells can't replicate. But the cells have ways to repair the DNA. The cancer drugs aren't as effective as patients ...

A key biochemical enables bacteria to repair otherwise fatal damage to their DNA, including that caused by antibiotics. That is the finding of a study led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and published May 20 ...

(Medical Xpress)The results of two studies by two different teams studying the role that DNA repair plays in the production of mutation-prone sequencesprecursors to cancer, have been published in the journal Nature. ...

A recent study led by University of Kentucky researchers illuminates a new way that tobacco smoke may promote the development of lung cancer: inhibiting a DNA repair process called nucleotide excision repair (NER). The results ...

Researchers from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/University of Paris Diderot), the Institute of Biology of the Ecole Normale Suprieure (ENS/CNRS/Inserm), and the University of Bristol, have described for the first time ...

If you have a soft spot for unsung heroes, you'll love a DNA repair protein called XPG. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) discovered that XPG plays a previously ...

Day in and day out, in our bodies, the DNA in cells is damaged for a variety of reasons, and thus intercellular DNA-repair systems are fundamental to the maintenance of life. Now scientists from the UNC School of Medicine ...

If you've ever been elbowed out of the way at the dinner table by older, stronger siblings, you'll identify with wolves competing with larger bears for food. A study by Utah State University ecologist Aimee Tallian and colleagues ...

Scientists have uncovered key processes in the healthy development of cells which line the human gut, furthering their understanding about the development of cancer.

While searching for a potential Achilles' heel in the insect responsible for spreading the bacterium that causes citrus greening disease, researchers have uncovered a protein that makes their bellies blue and may impact how ...

A study led by UC Santa Cruz researchers has found that drought dramatically increases the severity of West Nile virus epidemics in the United States, although populations affected by large outbreaks acquire immunity that ...

Few animals can match the humble hydra's resilience. The small, tentacled freshwater animals can be literally shredded into pieces and regrow into healthy animals. A study published February 7 in Cell Reports suggests that ...

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How life survives: Researchers confirm basic mechanism of DNA repair - Phys.Org

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Familial DNA bill passes NY Senate – Metro.us

Posted: at 9:52 pm

Legislation has passed in the state Senate that would allow New York to use familial DNA, a test that Karina Vetranos parents were pushing for in their effort to help solve her brutal rape and murder.

Familial DNA searching is a technique that compares DNA found at a crime scene, for example, to DNA already in the offender databank, providing near matches that could lead authorities to family members of the person who left the DNA sample.

It is unknown if familial DNA played a part in catching the suspect who is charged with killing Vetrano, state State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, Jr. said. The test is only legal in a handful of states, and New York is not one of them.

RELATED:Karina Vetranos family seeks ideas on donating reward money

The Queens Democrat co-sponsored the bill with Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato, a member of the DNA Subcommittee of the New York State Commission on Forensic Science.

I continue to believe that this type of search is an important resource in violent criminal investigations where the trail seems to be getting colder and colder, Addabbo said.

It took six long and painful months for the investigators to identify and arrest a suspect in Karinas case. Against great odds, our law enforcement agencies did a tremendous job in connecting the dots between the suspects earlier suspicious behavior, a 911 call, and the murder.

We know that familial DNA has been used in roughly 10 other states for almost 10 years, with success in finding felons, he added.

The DNA Subcommittee plans to create a report by the end of the year recommending best practices for the use of familial DNA searching.

There will be a public hearing on the issue on Friday. The senator said he will be testifying.

While there are legitimate questions regarding privacy rights and other issues surrounding the practice, I believe we can develop a policy that would address these concerns while giving our law enforcement community a powerful new tool to bring violent felons to justice, Addabbo said.

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Familial DNA bill passes NY Senate - Metro.us

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DNA, witness ID lead to charges against St. Louis drug dealer in 2012 killing – STLtoday.com

Posted: at 9:52 pm

ST. LOUIS A first-degree murder charge filed here Tuesday says a DNA match and witness identification have linked a convicted drug dealer to a 2012 fatal shooting in St. Louis.

Charles Billingsley, 26, who is in federal prison for drug trafficking, was charged in the May 17, 2012, shooting death of 19-year-old Lamar E. Miller.

Millers body was found behind the wheel of a black Ford Mustang in the 5400 block of Beacon Avenue in the citys Walnut Park East neighborhood, police said. He suffered a gunshot to the head.

Charges say a witness told Detective Scott Sailor that he had been in the back of the Mustang and saw Billingsley shoot Miller while Miller was driving.

DNA found inside the car was a match to Billingsley, and Millers DNA was found on clothing worn by Billingsley the day of the killing, the charges say.

Billingsley had given his clothing to someone for safekeeping, charges say, and the recipient at some point turned over the clothes to police, and told them Billingsley admitted killing Miller.

Billinglsey has been serving an eight-year term in federal prison since 2013 for several counts of marijuana trafficking and illegal possession of a firearm. He also has drug convictions in St. Louis County in 2009 and 2013.

His address in court records is in the first block of Chambers Road in St. Louis County, near Riverview. He also was charged Tuesday with armed criminal action, and cash bail was set at $500,000.

Miller lived in the 2000 block of East Prairie Avenue.

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Oscar Directing Nominees Help Us Trace Their DNA – Variety

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Directors influence each other with their work. Sometimes that influence is overt La La Land clearly evokes Singin in the Rain and Umbrellas of Cherbourg but other times it is more unexpected, hinging on storytelling choices or structure.

SEE MORE: Awards: The Contenders This story first appeared in the February 07, 2017 issue of Variety. Subscribe today.See more.

Variety asked this years directing nominees to help us trace the DNA of their movies, and all were happy to oblige.

Arrival Paramount In Villeneuves alien-invasion tale, humans eventually discover that the aliens want to help you help us.

Villeneuves choices: 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968: Definitely 2001, Villeneuve says, of Stanley Kubricks sci-fi classic in which Earthlings, searching for signs of intelligent life, are nearly outwitted by artificial intelligence. Jaws 1975: It was Spielbergs idea that you unveil slowly the entity, to create suspense, Villeneuve says. That very slow striptease is something I stole from Jaws.

Our choices: The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951: Aliens caution Earthlings not to destroy themselves with nuclear weapons in Robert Wises sci-fi classic. Starman 1984: A friendly interplanetary visitor gets a hostile reception from fearful humans in John Carpenters movie. The Miracle Worker 1962: Language is the bridge between two seemingly separate worlds in Arthur Penns Helen Keller biopic.

Hacksaw Ridge Lionsgate A deeply religious medic who refuses to carry a gun becomes an unlikely hero in Mel Gibsons brutal World War II saga.

Gibsons choices: Saving Private Ryan 1998: Its part of a great tradition of war films, Gibson says of Spielbergs D-Day drama, which raised the bar on graphic war carnage. Sergeant York 1941: That was kind of an inspiration, Gibson says of Howard Hawks movie, although that one is about a conscientious objector who actually picked up a gun and started shooting.

Our choices: The Longest Day 1962: A massive battle against impossible odds is fought with a giant all-star cast in Ken Annakins tale. From Here to Eternity 1953: A soldier receives unfair harsh treatment from officers in the run-up to Pearl Harbor in Fred Zinnemanns movie. Platoon 1986: Willem Dafoe suffers a Christ-like death, after being betrayed by a Judas among his own men in Oliver Stones Vietnam War movie.

La La Land Lionsgate Damien Chazelle traces his L.A. musicals lineage back to the silent era.

Chazelles choices: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964: This film definitely, Chazelle says, citing Jacques Demys musical as an influence, and Lola, an earlier Demy film, also was very influential. Singin in the Rain 1952: Chazelle cites any of those great Gene Kelly musicals like Singin in the Rain or American in Paris, the former directed by Stanley Donen and the latter by Vincente Minnelli in 1951. Boogie Nights 1997, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson: I was influenced by some of those great L.A. movies, Chazelle says. I love Boogie Nights, Short Cuts, and a couple of others. 7th Heaven 1927: Chazelle cited Frank Borzages silent weepie in which a woman whose lover has died in WWI briefly imagines their entire life together, had he returned as the inspiration for his ending when accepting an award from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Our choice: A Star Is Born 1954: George Cukors film features the original show-business-tale trope: An established star discovers a rising talent, then suffers a decline.

Manchester by the Sea Amazon Studios Kenneth Lonergans wrenching drama revolves around the aftereffects of unspeakable tragedy.

Lonergans choices: Five Easy Pieces 1970: Lonergan cites Bob Rafelsons haunting tale of an estranged family dealing with its ghost as an influence. Coal Miners Daughter 1980: Its such a human story, Lonergan says of Michael Apteds bio of Loretta Lynn starring Sissy Spacek. Its got a personal scale and a universal scale. Its a very emotional story with a lot of love and a lot of loss. Bang the Drum Slowly 1973: Lonergan also took inspiration from John Hancocks tale of a dying baseball players final season.

Our choices: Ordinary People 1980: A suburban family begins to splinter after the eldest sons accidental death in Robert Redfords movie. Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf 1966: Edward Albees play, adapted by Mike Nichols, focuses on a married couple whose great tragedy is either their dead son or their dead dream of having a child.

Moonlight A24 Barry Jenkins directed this coming-of-age tale about being young, black, poor, and gay in 80s Miami.

Jenkins choices: Happy Together 1997: This is one of three films I usually cite, Jenkins says of director Wong Kar-wais movie. It was the first film I saw that dealt with a relationship between two men. Beau Travail 1999: I love the way she deals with masculinity in a corrupt system, Jenkins says while saluting Claire Denis movie as an influence. Three Times 2005: Jenkins also mentioned Hou Hsiao-Hsiens film set in three separate time periods, with the same actors playing different characters who encounter each other in each section of the film.

Our choices: Boys Dont Cry 1999: A young transgender man runs afoul of small-town intolerance in Kimberly Peirces indie landmark. Boyhood 2014: A boys youth is thrown off-kilter by his moms personal drama in Richard Linklaters film.

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Oscar Directing Nominees Help Us Trace Their DNA - Variety

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