Monthly Archives: July 2017

Bitcoin: Civil War – Seeking Alpha

Posted: July 14, 2017 at 4:52 am

Bitcoin, and by default, the Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX:GBTC), is becoming a binary - and rather volatile - investment. Granted, cryptocurrency isnt known for its stability, bitcoin will be borderline bipolar over the next couple weeks as the cryptocurrency goest through an internal battle that may lead to a split into two currencies.

Digital gold.

Many point to the silver lining for bitcoin. Bitcoins market cap is roughly $40 billion, just a fraction of golds $7.5 trillion market value. The supply of bitcoin will also grow slower than that of gold over the next half decade. Bitcoins ability to prove itself as a better store of value than gold could be the next legup for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

There will be near-term volatility and uncertainty with bitcoin; however, longer-term the idea that made bitcoin so exciting could still be intact. Fundstrat believes that bitcoin could hit $20,000 by 2022. Part of what fuels that extreme price target is the idea that bitcoin could get a major boost from central banks moving from owning gold to owning cryptocurrencies.

The problem, however, is getting cryptocurrencies to a solid level - that is, the market value will need to move up about five-times from the current $100 billion before central banks show interest. But such a move would help cryptocurrencies become legitimate and truly compete with gold. Sure, bitcoin is volatile. Bitcoins annualized volatility is roughly 75%. But volatility isnt anything new for currency investors, even for gold investors. During the 1970s, golds volatility was 90%.

But ... the near-term issues are big: There is a bitcoin civil war.

Bitcoin is scheduled to get two competing software updates at the end of the month, which could split the currency in two. This internal battle is all over how to increase processing time and capability of the blockchain. On one side of the fence is the miners who want to increase the block size limit on the blockchain. Then theres the developers that want some of the data managed outside the main network to help with congestion.

What that means for holders and miners, no one really knows. But it is in everyones best interest to come to an agreement and settle without a split. A new version of software that doubles the block chain size in the near-term, until a longer-term solution is found, will be released on July 21. By all accounts, this could be an amicable solution. For 10 days after the software release, itll be monitored to see if 80% of miners adopt it, but anything less will create a gross uncertainty on the August 1 deadline for a decision.

If things go bad, itll should be a quick and volatile. I dont own any bitcoin, but will likely hold out until being able to get in between $1,600-$1,800 - pre-split that is.

But the likelihood of a settlement has been increased in recent months given the pressure from ethereum, which is gaining traction and market share on bitcoin. Or, some might consider this the right time for the currency to folk/split and explore their own solutions - likely at the expense of a price crash. That, would also be a positive for ethereum. Either way, all this bitcoin uncertainty creates a win-win situation for ethereum.

Bitcoin is still also facing practical application overhang - one of the big issues for bitcoin is that its still too expensive to use bitcoin for small things like coffee. The transaction fee for bitcoin is up to $5, the highest ever. A lot of the use cases for bitcoin as a transactional currency are dead before beginning. Meanwhile, ethereum isn't interested in transactions and is focused on more productive things like smart contracts.

All in all, all of this still points to interim pressure for the GBTC and bitcoin - although the case for GBTC is a mess 'as is.' But if central banks and governments show an appetite for cryptocurrencies, bitcoin can win, so can ethereum. Its the number two currency behind bitcoin and quickly gaining ground. If bitcoin can sort out its internal conflict, ethereum could overtake bitcoin in terms of market cap before 2018.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: I am/we are long Ethereum.

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August 1 and the Potential Disruption of the Bitcoin Network – Bitcoin News (press release)

Posted: at 4:52 am

If youve been listening to the bitcoin community, youd know in about two weeks the bitcoin network may face some protocol changes. Due to the possible user-activated soft fork (UASF) planned and the chance some groups may counter this plan, this has created thousands of discussions concerning August 1. Now the bitcoin-focused web portal Bitcoin.org has issued a warning on the site that informs users of a potential network disruption.

Also read:Mining, Merchants, and TradersThailands Got the Bitcoin Fever

Bitcoin users everywhere are getting prepared and heavily discussing the possibility of a blockchain split. The subject was discussed a lotthis past March when bitcoin proponents and cryptocurrency businesses feared a potential split when the Bitcoin Unlimited implementation was seeing strong support. Now the conversation has resurfaced, but the topic of UASF or BIP148 is an entirely different scenario.

UASF (BIP148) is a mechanism designed to start on August 1st, at 00:00 UTC that activates a soft fork enforced by full nodes. After this point, full nodes participating in this plan will reject blocks that have not upgraded to BIP141 otherwise known as Segregated Witness (Segwit). At press time there are 1095 total UASF nodes out of 7896 reachable bitcoin nodes globally according to Bitnodes. UASF requires a lot of industry support and miners to activate Segwit, by this point if they do not support the activation the chain could diverge into two.

Currently, there are businesses that have announced initial support for BIP148 such as Abra, Trezor, Samourai Wallet, Electrum, Coinomi, Mycelium and roughly 37 other organizations. However, there are many wallets and a vast majority of exchanges that have not announced any support or issued warnings about the upcoming August 1st Segwit enforcement. This includes a significant amount of wallet providers and exchanges including Bitstamp, Kraken, Bitfinex, Gemini, BTCC, Poloniex, and many more. One relatively small exchange in Switzerland called Bity has warned its customers the platform will be halting trading on August 1st.

On Wednesday, July 12, 2017, 08:00:00 GMT Bitcoin.org issued a warning in regards to the potential network disruption that may take place on July 31, 20:00:00 GMT/August 1st, 00:00 UTC.

Bitcoin confirmation scores may become unreliable for an unknown length of time, explains the network disruption warning. This means that any bitcoins you receive after that time may later disappear from your wallet or be a type of bitcoin that other people will not accept as payment.

Once the situation is resolved, confirmation scores will either automatically return to their normal reliability, or there will be two (or more) competing versions of Bitcoin. In the former case, you may return to using Bitcoin normally; in the later case, you will need to take extra steps in order to begin safely receiving bitcoins again.

The warning gives users some preparation guidelines and possible outcomes for during and after the UASF event. This includes not trusting payments during this time, and not sending payments until after the dust has settled. Even the maintainer of the website Bitcoinuptime.com says that there may be potential bitcoin downtime from the upcoming BIP148 fork and the networks 99.991523267% uptime will have to be updated. Further, there was an issue concerning the Bitcoin.org alert over the wording Bitcoin may be unsafe to use starting July 31st in contrast to saying potential network disruption. The developer who made the change writes;

Note: I object to this change, which I think makes the alert less clear, less forceful, and degrades alert usability. I make this change only because the Bitcoin.org site maintainer insists upon it.

Following Bitcoin.orgs disruption alert one large bitcoin exchange has come forward issuing a warning and how the company will handle the August 1 situation. The cryptocurrency trading platform GDAX, a subset of Coinbase announced there will be a temporary suspension of deposits, withdrawals, and possibly trading on August 1. GDAX executive Adam White says, the activation of UASF may create two blockchains, and outlines how the company plans on handling the possible fork. If August 1 results in two chains, GDAX states;

In either scenario, we will implement safeguards to ensure the safety of our customers funds. For example, we will temporarily suspend the deposit and withdrawal of bitcoin on GDAX and may pause the trading of bitcoin as well. This decision will be based on our assessment of the technical risks posed by the fork, such as replay attacks and other factors that could create network instability.

Another possible scenario to think about is the Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap) implementation that was revealed by the software engineer, Amaury Schet at The Future of Bitcoin event in Arnhem. The project has released its latest client Bitcoin ABC 0.14.2and says its a full node implementation of Bitcoin that removes Segwit code and replaces it with an adjustable block size cap. During the initial announcement, Schet detailed that Bitcoin ABC is part of the user-activated hard fork contingency plan against BIP148.

In essence, the ABC protocol prepares for any disruptive risks associated with UASF activation and could also activate during the August 1st Flag Day as well. Besides being a contingency plan, the UAHF protocol will move the block size cap towards the activation of emergent consensus where users can decide block size themselves. Bitcoin ABC could counter the BIP148 soft fork which could cause network disruption, and a possible blockchain split as well.

Alongside these two alternative plans, the Segwit2x working group has also been steadily preparing the compromise idea announced called the New York Agreement. The group released beta code and have been experimenting with the Segwit protocol and a 2MB hard fork on a Bitcoin testnet. So far there has been a lot of bickering about Segwit2x between the projects lead developer Jeff Garzik, Bitcoin core developers, and the Blockstream CEO Adam Back. Many core supporters refuse to compromise on Segwit2x calling it Franken-segwit and a great majority of core developers have rejected supporting the idea. However, some core maintainers have been making comments on Segwit2xs Github and the working groups Slack channel. There is still uncertainty concerning the New York Agreement plan, but the working group is still moving along as August 1st gets closer.

As far as August 1st is concerned users should make sure they hold their private keys. There is a possibility of network disruption and Bitcoin.com will inform our readers of everything people need to know, including exchange updates, trading, withdrawal and deposit suspensions, and any other important information that arises in regards to this specific date.

What do you think about August 1st? Do you think there will be any potential network disruption or do you think nothing will happen at all? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, Saltylemon.org, Bitcoin.org, and Bitcoin ABC.

Show the world how cutting-edge you are with a bitcoin T-shirt, hoodie, bag, key-ring, even a Trezor hardware wallet. Shipping all over the world, quality merchandise and, of course, a payment system that makes people say wow!

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Cancer-Killing Treatment Tested on International Space Station – Space.com

Posted: at 4:51 am

Microgravity research on the International Space Station may give new insights into fighting cancer, NASA said.

A new investigation in space is trying build a drug to to help the immune system kill cancer cells , which would prevent a given type of cancer from happening again in a patient. Investigators hope to make this possible using a new drug and antibody combination that could decrease the nasty side effects (such as nausea and hair loss) that are common with patients using chemotherapy, NASA officials said in a statement.

While chemotherapy is effective in treating cancer, the treatment unfortunately kills healthy cells along with the unhealthy ones. The new approach targets only cancer cells by combining an antibody with azonafide, a cancer-killing drug. Investigators said they are hopeful that the new combination will cause less severe issues than those associated with chemotherapy, though the treatment will still have side effects. [Benefits of Cancer Research on Space Station Explained (Video)]

New drugs in development on the International Space Station would target cancer cells and cause fewer side effects than chemotherapy. This six-well BioCell will culture the cancer cells.

"One of the reasons cancer cells grow in certain individuals is their defense mechanism fails to recognize" the cancer cells, co-investigator Dhaval Shah, an assistant pharmaceutical sciences professor at SUNY Buffalo in New York state, said in the statement.

"This [new] molecule also has the ability to wake up, or release the brake on existing immune cells within the cancer," Shah added. "In any given tumor, when these molecules are released [from the cancer cell], they 'wake up' the surrounding immune cells and stimulate the body's own immune system, making it recognize and kill the cancer cells itself."

Doing cancer research on the International Space Station provides other benefits as well, he said. The microgravity environment better simulates the human body, because you can grow large, spherical cancer tumors, Zea said.

Also, future explorers heading to Mars are at an increased risk of cancer due to radiation. This research could provide insights into how effective these drug combinations are in microgravity, which would be helpful if the illness happens to occur in astronauts en route to Mars or returning home, NASA stated.

"We don't know if the cells will be metabolizing the drug at the same rate as they do on Earth," said Shah. "In the long term, we need to be sure what drugs are going to work."

The investigation is called "Efficacy and Metabolism of Azonafide Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs) in Microgravity." More information about microgravity investigations can be found @ISS_Research.

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

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Students take plunge to build space station | Local News … – Bloomington Pantagraph

Posted: at 4:51 am

NORMAL Maybe elementary and junior high school students can't take a ride on the vomit comet to experience zero gravity. But they can get a taste of how astronauts train for working in micro-gravity in a swimming pool.

That's what 16 students entering sixth- through eighth-grade have been doing this week at Normal Community West High School in the Challenger Learning Center's International Space Station Underwater Adventure. It's part of Heartland Community College's Youth Enrichment Program.

Like the astronauts, the students learn they have to move slowly and carefully as they work to assemble modules that simulate the International Space Station.

It's harder than you think, said 11-year-old Josie Melrose of Bloomington, who will be a sixth-grader at Evans Junior High School this fall. It takes some time to get used to it.

Laura Pulley, 12, of Downs, has wanted to take the class for a couple of years but it wasn't offered last year and she was too young the year before.

I love to explore and learn especially about space, said Laura, who will be a seventh-grader at Tri-Valley. She did a Challenger center mission on a school field trip and said, ever since then, I've wanted to be an astronaut.

The students are using snorkeling equipment and a device similar to scuba equipment called a sea breathe. The sea breathe floats on the surface of the pool and two students at a time wear masks connected to it with hoses, breathing as they would with scuba gear.

Using the sea breathe and learning about scuba techniques, although it is not a scuba class, is the favorite part of the course for Rylan Nelson of Normal. But the 12-year-old, who will be in seventh-grade at Metcalf School, said he also likes learning about space and the International Space Station.

I like how they show us all of the science around it, he said.

But the students are learning more than science and snorkeling.

We will work on teamwork every day, said Shrewsbury.

That happens both in and out of the pool.

For example, they had a group activity where everyone was standing on a space blanket to protect them from the toxic surface of the planet they were on actually a classroom. They had to figure out how to reverse the blanket without losing any of their fellow astronauts.

About a third of the class wound up stepping off the blanket the first day, Shrewsbury said. But, by the second day, their communication and strategy skills improved and no one touched the toxic ground.

Another lesson is the importance of practice and training.

By Day 5, the students will be able to assemble the space station underwater in about an hour but the final task will be preceded by six or seven of practice, explained Shrewsbury.

That's about what it is for astronauts, she said at least six or seven hours of practice for an hourlong spacewalk.

They'll understand it's not just about being an astronaut, but in life it takes time and it takes practice and you have to work as a team, said Shrewsbury.

Josie was confident she and her fellow students would be ready when their parents came to watch.

I think by Friday we'll totally have it mastered, she said.

Mike Burt, a chemistry teacher at Normal West, who also teaches earth and space science, is helping with the class. He said it's a good opportunity to learn more about the Challenger center.

Even though they're just down the street, I had no idea they had all these resources, he said.

Follow Lenore Sobota on Twitter @Pg_Sobota

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Bellefonte Area students could get chance to communicate with astronauts in space – Centre Daily Times

Posted: at 4:51 am

Bellefonte Area students could get chance to communicate with astronauts in space
Centre Daily Times
The school is one of 13 in the country to be approved for the second phase of a selection process to host the Earthbound part of amateur radio contact with the International Space Station crew. Representatives from the International Space Station are ...

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Titan’s Alien Lakes Might Be Perfect Landing Spots for Colonization Probes – Outer Places

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Titan, Saturn's largest Moon, has the potential to be an ideal location forhuman colonization and explorationwithin our Solar System, along withMars (though Mars' prospects have gotten less rosy lately). Some even arguethat,besidesEarth, it is theonly place suitable for human colonization in our celestial neighborhood. While it is unbelievably cold, distant, and strange, it is also home tolarge bodies of surface liquid, solid ground, a thick atmosphere, and more. And, to add to that list,scientists recently discoveredcalm hydrocarbon lakesthat could make landing future probes a piece of cake.

The highest that waves reach on the lakes of Titan is about one centimeter.These alien lakesare more tranquil than we might be able to picture, sitting remarkably still. And so, if and when we are able to send probes to that Moon, scientists think that these lakes would make a good landing point. According to lead author Cyril Grima, a research associate at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG): "There's a lot of interest in one day sending probes to the lakes, and when that's done, you want to have a safe landing, and you don't want a lot of wind...Our study shows that because the waves aren't very high, the winds are likely low."

Image Credit: NASA

So what does this mean? It might not sound that exciting at first glance, but it is a huge step forward in our never-ending cosmic exploration. Especially with the recent news that Mars' soilcould be toxic to any potential bacterial life, it is important to remember that the Red Planet isn't the only possible destination for future astronauts and probes. Titan could be the future location of a permanent human colony and the ability of a probe to successfully and smoothly land is crucial to missions going well. So, while we still have a long way to go (literally and more figuratively), this is one huge step in the right direction.

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Researchers study possible carnitine deficiency, autism link – Baylor College of Medicine News (press release)

Posted: at 4:50 am

Researchers are always looking for new clues to the causes of autism, with special emphasis on prevention or treatment. At Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Arthur Beaudet has been following clinical and genetic clues in patients with autism spectrum disorder and experimental results in animal models that have led him to propose that the lack of carnitine, a nutrient needed for the normal development and workings of the brain, the liver, the heart and other muscles, might be involved in triggering mild forms of autism.

In a publication in the journal BioEssays, Beaudet, the Henry and Emma Meyer Chair and Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics, emphasizes that more research is needed to confirm this idea and speculates that, if confirmed, it could lead to the prevention of 10 to 20 percent of cases of autism by supplementing carnitine to infants.

In the Beaudet lab, graduate student Patricia Celestino-Soper discovered in 2009 that about 1 in 350 males in the population cannot synthesize their own carnitine; they have an inactive copy of the TMLHE gene, which is located on the X chromosome.

Of the nearly 460,000 males in the United States who have TMLHE gene deficiency, only about 3 percent develop autism. The remaining 97 percent become healthy adults, Beaudet said. Sometimes behavioral regression occurs.

The regression of skills might be as subtle as first having a social smile and playfulness at 6 to 8 months of age and then losing these skills. Sometimes, the regression of skills occurs later and is more dramatic. Although TMLHE deficiency is present in only about 1 percent of autism cases, Beaudet proposes that carnitine deficiency in the brain might cause a much larger fraction of autism.

We speculate that the individuals with a normal physical examination and normal brain imaging results in studies, which represents 10 to 20 percent of all cases of autism spectrum disorders, might have in common a mechanism that leads to a mild form of autism. This mechanism might involve brain carnitine deficiency, Beaudet said.

In the search for more evidence to support the link between carnitine deficiency and mild forms of autism that disproportionally affect males, Beaudet and colleagues looked for other genes on the X chromosome that might be involved with carnitine. They identifiedthe SLC6A14 gene that is linked to the transport of carnitine across the blood-brain barrier and is expressed differently in females. There is no mutation in the gene, but healthy girls will express more of this activity and perhaps more transport into the brain than healthy males.

The proposed involvement of SLC6A14 could be tested in animal models by assessing the transport of carnitine across the blood brain barrier and testing for abnormalities resulting from brain carnitine deficiency, Beaudet said.

How could carnitine deficiency lead to a form of autism in an apparently healthy infant?

The researchers believe that most infants are born with adequate carnitine because carnitine is usually delivered across the placenta, and most infants are born with adequate carnitine stores, Beaudet said.

In addition, carnitine is abundant in breast milk, infant formulas and cows milk, so infants will be protected from the deficiency as long as they are exclusively fed these products.

In many cultures, when the infant is introduced to new foods between 4 and 8 months of age, the first non-milk foods are fruits, juices, cereals and vegetables, all of which contain almost no carnitine, and meats are introduced later, Beaudet said. Eggs, dairy and meats all have more substantial amounts of carnitine. Red meats are particularly rich; 1 ounce of beef contains 2,000 times more carnitine than 1 ounce of white rice. When low-carnitine solid foods are added to the diet, the intake of carnitine drops in proportion to the reduction in milk intake. This reduction in carnitine might lead to brain carnitine deficiency and autism. Many parents of children with autism spectrum disorder report picky eating and this may also reduce the amount of meat in the diet.

Beaudet and colleagues speculate that both the individuals genetic makeup and the environment might contribute to this form of autism. The researchers hypothesize that although there are dozens of genes that affect the metabolism of carnitine in the body, each gene might have a small effect, but no one gene has a severe disabling effect, such as often occurs in the more severe forms of autism. The diet is an equally important factor in this hypothesis. In addition, the researchers propose, other factors also may contribute, such as certain medications, minor illnesses (especially gastrointestinal conditions) and perhaps changes in the microbiome that might deplete carnitine from the body.

Some evidence might not support this hypothesis. Although carnitine deficiency has been reported in autism, it is not reported as frequently as this hypothesis might suggest, Beaudet said.

One way to directly test this hypothesis could be by working with families who already have one child with a milder form of autism. In these families, the risk of having another child with autism spectrum disorder is high, especially if the child is a male.

Families such as these could be enrolled in a study to determine whether supplementation with carnitine will reduce the frequency of autism in the new siblings. This would be a very direct and powerful test of the hypothesis, Beaudet said.

Beaudet indicates that the possibility that carnitine deficiency might be involved in mild forms of autism brings to the table the question of whether there should be a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for carnitine in normal infant diets. In the 1980s, experts indicated that an RDA for carnitine was not necessary because the human body can make its own.

We now know that 1 in 350 males indeed cannot synthesize carnitine. The need for an RDA for carnitine perhaps should be reviewed, Beaudet said.

Beaudet also is professor of molecular and cellular biology and of pediatrics at Baylor.

The evolution of this hypothesis was supported by past grants from the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, Autism Speaks #7697 and currently the National Institutes of Health Baylor College of Medicine Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Center grant P30 HD024064.

A video describing this research and the original publication can be found online.

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Who Needs Hard Drives? Scientists Store Film Clip in DNA – New York Times

Posted: at 4:49 am

A record for publication, he said in an interview.

With the new research, he and other scientists have begun to wonder if it may be possible one day to do something even stranger: to program bacteria to snuggle up to cells in the human body and to record what they are doing, in essence making a movie of each cells life.

When something goes wrong, when a person gets ill, doctors might extract the bacteria and play back the record. It would be, said Dr. Church, analogous to the black boxes carried by airplanes whose data is used in the event of a crash.

At the moment, all that is the other side of science fiction, said Ewan Birney, director of the European Bioinformatics Institute and a member of the group that put Shakespeares sonnets in DNA. Storing information in DNA is this side of science fiction.

Dr. Church and Seth Shipman, a geneticist, and their colleagues began by assigning each pixel in the black-and-white film a DNA code based on its shade of gray. The vast chains of DNA in each cell are made of just four molecules adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine arranged in enormously varied configurations.

The geneticists ended up with a sequence of DNA molecules that represented the entirety of the film. Then they used a powerful new gene editing technique, Crispr, to slip this sequence into the genome of a common gut bacteria, E. coli.

Despite the modification, the bacteria thrived and multiplied. The film stored in the genome was preserved intact with each new generation of progeny, the team found.

Andrew Odlyzko, a mathematics professor and expert on digital technology at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the new research, called it fascinating.

Imagine, he said, the impossibility of controlling secrets, when those secrets are encoded in the genomes of the bacteria in our guts or on our skins.

The renowned physicist Richard Feynman proposed half a century ago that DNA could be used for storage in this way. That was long before the molecular biology revolution, and decades before anyone could sequence DNA much less edit it.

Biology is not simply writing information; it is doing something about it, Dr. Feynman said in a 1959 lecture.

Consider the possibility that we too can make a thing very small which does what we want!

Dr. Feynmans idea was a seminal piece it gave us a direction, said Leonard Adleman, a mathematician at the University of Southern California and co-inventor of one of the most used public cryptography systems, RSA (the A is for Adleman).

In 1994, Dr. Adleman reported that he had stored data in DNA and used it as a computer to solve a math problem. He determined that DNA can store a million million times more data than a compact disc in the same space.

And data storage is a growing problem. Not only are significant amounts being generated, but the technology used to store it keeps becoming obsolete, like floppy disks.

DNA is never going out of fashion. Organisms have been storing information in DNA for billions of years, and it is still readable, Dr. Adleman said. He noted that modern bacteria can read genes recovered from insects trapped in amber for millions of years.

For Dr. Shipman and Dr. Church, the immediate challenge is the brain. It contains 86 billion neurons, and theres no easy way to know what theyre doing.

Right now, we can measure one neuron at a time with electrodes, but 86 billion electrodes would not fit in your brain, Dr. Church said. But gene-edited bacteria would fit very nicely.

The idea is to have bacteria engineered as recording devices drift up to the brain in the blood and take notes for a while. Scientists would then extract the bacteria and examine their DNA to see what they had observed in the brain neurons.

Dr. Church and his colleagues have already shown in past research that bacteria can record DNA in cells, if the DNA is properly tagged.

Peoples intuition is tremendously poor about just how small DNA molecules are and how much information can be packed into them, Dr. Birney said.

And while these are futuristic ideas, biotechnologies have been arriving much faster than anyone predicted, Dr. Church said.

He gave as an example the sequencing of the human genome. The first effort took years and cost $3 billion. The wildest optimists predicted that maybe in six decades each sequencing would cost $1,000.

It turned out it was six years, rather than six decades, Dr. Church said.

A version of this article appears in print on July 13, 2017, on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: A Living Hard Drive That Can Copy Itself.

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DNA breakthroughs could provide faces to faceless – KOKH FOX25

Posted: at 4:49 am

98% of your DNA is the same as everyone's DNA, 2% is different. (KOKH)

What can you learn from DNA?

Applications for discovering and analyzing the building blocks of life are growing faster than ever and providing new options for everyone from doctors to criminal investigators.

Inside a DNA profile is the recipe for making a person. When it comes to this recipe 98% of it is the same for every human.

Two percent of your DNA is different and that difference, that's the part of the DNA we look at to see what makes you unique and what makes me unique, explained Dr. Patrick Gaffney, the head of the Genomics and Data Sciences Division for the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

The differences found inside the two percent of a persons DNA can be compared to the hundreds of thousands of DNA samples that have already been analyzed. Scientists can compare the individual sequences in a DNA profile to those that have similar structures to find features.

We can look at sequences from 500,000 people with blonde hair and blue eyes and say these people seem to have this pattern, Dr. Gaffney told FOX 25, So we can take that information and apply it to another person and say this person is likely to have blonde hair and blue eyes based on their match of our population patterns.

Some companies are taking it further, by analyzing the DNA differences to determine facial features and creating portraits from nothing more than a DNA profile.

What are the applications of this new technology?

Suspects could be pictured when there are no eye witnesses. Law enforcement could give faces for the public to identify when there are only remains found.

Perhaps the most notable case where this technology could be applied would be providing a face to the yet unknown 169th person who died in the Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995.

The unknown DNA profile sample sat hidden for more than 20 years until revealed by a Washington Times/Fox 25 Investigation. The person is either another victim or another accomplice to the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.

While the technology was not available in the 1990's, the Oklahoma Medical Examiner held onto the profile that did not match any of the known victims and kept a sample from the unidentified leg left from the bomb site.

At the very least, an analysis now of the DNA profile could tell us traits such as ethnicity, hair color, or eye color.

Even then the composite information that comes from these variants work, like reconstructing facial features...it's an inexact science at this time, Dr. Gaffney said.

Forensic examiners also warn that a composite sketch from DNA also doesn't take into account cosmetic changes which would keep people from identifying a person.

Still Gaffney says as more work is done with DNA, scientists are able to make more accurate predictions based on population studies. This kind of analysis could also lead to precision medicines and treatments in addition to aiding in forensics.

You're going to start seeing improvements in the accuracy of these technologies, Gaffney said.

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Male DNA identified but not disclosed during ex-cop’s controversial trial – KOKH FOX25

Posted: at 4:49 am

(KOKH)

It was DNA that helped seal the fate of Daniel Holtzclaw. From jury members who have spoken about the case publicly to members of the public who followed the trial, the DNA evidence presented in court was damning to the defense.

Prosecutors presented a case that was largely circumstantial evidence, but a police crime lab analyst provided the testimony that told how DNA from one of the victims was found on the inside of the zipper on Holtzclaws uniform pants.

After the conviction, a biologist from Iowa read about the case online. It was not hard to find headlines of the former cop sentenced to 263 years in prison for raping and sexually assaulting a number of women while on patrol.

However, what drew Erica Fuchs to the case was the mention of DNA. Fuchs deals with DNA and has been a lab researcher and was surprised when she could not find out more about this crucial piece of evidence.

She contacted the Holtzclaw family to see if she could review a copy of the laboratory reports.

Right away I could see that both samples had a Y chromosome in them, Fuchs told FOX 25, So this told me that there was DNA from at least one male in both of the samples.

The police analyst told the jury that Holtzclaw's DNA was not found, which prosecutors said helped prove sexual assault. However Fuchs says even that conclusion was not scientifically sound because the DNA samples found were so small. Besides, it wasnt just the male DNA that wasnt identified. There were other profiles that contributed to the sample, but the jury was only told about one.

Those two samples during the analyst's testimony she said had no evidence of male DNA in them, but actually both of those samples did, Fuchs said.

The presence of male DNA could mean a number of things. It could mean that there as a male victim sexually assaulted, but never identified.

However Fuchs says due to the miniscule amount of DNA found in total, the unknown samples adds to the argument made by the defense that the DNA was there due to innocent transfer. DNA, Fuchs said, can be transferred from person to person or from person to object to another person. Defense attorneys during Holtzclaws trial argued that since he had searched the victims belongings he could have picked up a skin cell and then touched his pants.

There is also another possibility.

The sex crimes detectives were handling items in ways that could have led to DNA transferring to the fly of the pants, Fuchs said. She noted in particular an interrogation video showed a detective opening the evidence bag in which Holtzclaws uniform was placed, with his bare hands.

Fuchs is also concerned about the lack of testing performed by the Oklahoma City Police crime lab. While tests for bodily fluids and even vaginal fluids are available, they were not performed in a case that alleged sexual assault. Despite that fact prosecutors told jurors that the victims DNA found on Holtzclaws pants came from vaginal walls. Fuchs says it is scientifically impossible to identify where the DNA originated.

During the secret court hearings that have become the latest controversy to surround this high-profile case, FOX 25 has learned DNA was part of the discussion.

The court ordered the hearings sealed. Attorneys representing Holtzclaw on his appeal were not even allowed to attend. However, one person FOX 25 has confirmed was in attendance was the supervisor of the police DNA lab. He was there for both days of the hearing that only involved prosecutors and a judge.

While no one is talking on the record about what happened during that hearing, the appeals court ordered it just days after receiving a request from several DNA experts, including Fuchs, to provide the court with information about scientific flaws presented at trial.

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Male DNA identified but not disclosed during ex-cop's controversial trial - KOKH FOX25

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