Monthly Archives: May 2024

The bodies of the two Ukrainian soldiers lay motionless in a field for months. Around them were bloodstains and their rifles.

The soldiers relatives identified their bodies from aerial footage gathered by drone. Though excruciating to watch, it seemed clear: The two men Pvt. Serhiy Matsiuk and Pvt. Andriy Zaretsky were dead. Yet more than four months later, the Ukrainian military still lists them as missing, even though subsequent drone footage provided by a fellow soldier weeks later showed them still lying there.

I want to have his grave where I can come and cry all this out properly, said Private Zaretskys wife, Anastasia, 31, who has been looking for closure since he was killed in November in the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraines south.

This confusion, and the lengthy, difficult process of obtaining official declaration of the deaths, is far from isolated, and has emerged as another painful consequence of the two-year-old war.

Families, lawyers and rights groups say that the Ukrainian military is simply overloaded with casualties and unable to account for thousands of the dead, adding to the anguish of soldiers families.

Relatives of the two men in the field said that as far as they know, the bodies are still laying on the ground in the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraines south.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

Read the original post:
DNA Tests and Stranded Bodies: Ukraine's Struggle to Name Its Dead - The New York Times

Featured Image Credit: Inside Edition

Published 15:58 2 May 2024 GMT+1

I think we've all had that one moment when out in public and gone, 'That person looks a lot like me'.

Of course, most of the time it ends up being someone that just looks a lot like you.

However, not all stories end up like that, just ask two identical-looking athletes with same name.

When you look very alike and work in the same field, then why not have a DNA test to provide some answers.

Brady Feigl is a 6'4 baseball player with red hair, a red beard and thick glasses

And, somehow, another Brady Feigl is also a 6'4 baseball player with red hair, a red beard and thick glasses.

Quite the story already, eh?

Somehow, there are two baseball-playing Brady Feigls out there and they look very alike too.

One of the players is a a pitcher for the Pericos de Puebla in Mexico, while the other is a pitcher for the Oakland Athletics but was released by the organization in June 2023.

The two athletes are so similar that everyone who sees them can't help but think: are they long-lost brothers?

Even they started to wonder whether they were related after a while. So, Inside Edition got them together to do a DNA test in the hopes of figuring it out once and for all.

It wouldn't be the first time a pair of long-lost siblings had ended up living insanely similar lives.

One of the most famous examples of this were the 'Jim twins', identical twins who were separated at birth and put up for adoption before discovering each other later in life.

When they finally reunited they realised they'd had the same interests along with a brother called Larry, a childhood dog named Toy, a first wife called Linda and a second wife named Betty.

They'd even both unknowingly given their firstborn sons the same name, and liked the same type of beer and brand of cigarettes.

Sadly for anyone hoping for another instance of the 'Jim twins' with the 'Brady twins', DNA testing revealed that these almost identical guys living almost identical lives weren't actually related after all.

Their one big similarity from the DNA test was the level of Germanic ancestry, with both registering as 53 percent Germanic in origin, but on every other measure they were different and therefore not secret siblings.

Hopes of some incredible family reunion were dashed, but the two Bradys are glad they met each other and said they were 'still brothers in a way.'

Doppelgngers like Brady and Brady actually aren't uncommon.

Apparently, every person in the world has about six of them. Nearly as unbelievable as these two having the same name, ay?

Topics:Sport, Baseball

Read the original post:
Two identical-looking athletes with same name get DNA test to see if they are long-lost siblings - UNILAD

DNA evidence on a bandana has led to the arrest of a man accused in a 2010 robbery at a gas station in Indiana County.Authorities were called to the Shelocta BP convenience store on State Route 422 in September of 2010 for an attempted robbery.According to officials, an employee was cleaning a store when a man, now identified as Alexander Theodule Pelletier, walked in wearing a bandana over his face and a hooded sweatshirt. Pelletier allegedly held up his hand, also covered in a bandana, and demanded money. When Pelletier asked the employee if he wanted to be shot, police say the employee picked up a vacuum and swung it at him.A fight began between the pair, with Pelletier hitting the employee at least one time before fleeing, according to police.In March 2024, authorities were notified by the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory Services, that Pelletier's DNA was found on a bandana left at the scene.Pelletier of Williamsport was interviewed and arrested. He faces charges of robbery, simple assault and criminal attempt (theft by unlawful taking or disposition).

DNA evidence on a bandana has led to the arrest of a man accused in a 2010 robbery at a gas station in Indiana County.

Authorities were called to the Shelocta BP convenience store on State Route 422 in September of 2010 for an attempted robbery.

According to officials, an employee was cleaning a store when a man, now identified as Alexander Theodule Pelletier, walked in wearing a bandana over his face and a hooded sweatshirt.

Pelletier allegedly held up his hand, also covered in a bandana, and demanded money.

When Pelletier asked the employee if he wanted to be shot, police say the employee picked up a vacuum and swung it at him.

A fight began between the pair, with Pelletier hitting the employee at least one time before fleeing, according to police.

In March 2024, authorities were notified by the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory Services, that Pelletier's DNA was found on a bandana left at the scene.

Pelletier of Williamsport was interviewed and arrested. He faces charges of robbery, simple assault and criminal attempt (theft by unlawful taking or disposition).

Excerpt from:
DNA on bandana leads to arrest of suspect in 2010 Indiana County robbery case - WTAE Pittsburgh

Photo Submitted

Matthew Patitz, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

Matthew Patitz, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,received a grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant, worth $533,690, is for his collaborative research project titled "FET: Small: Algorithmic Self-Assembly with Crisscross Slats."

This project utilizes DNA, the fundamental genetic material of all living organisms, as a construction material for nanoscale structures. Leveraging the inherent base-pairing properties of DNA, the project employs a strategy known as slat assembly, where DNA sequences are designed to fold into elongated slats. The slats arethen pieced together to form complex geometries.

This approach aims to circumvent the limitations of previous DNA assembly methods specifically, the high costs and error rates associated with constructing larger structures. Slat assembly stands to substantially lower these barriers, enabling the creation of more intricate and vast nanostructures. The potential impact of this research spans multiple fields, including healthcare,where it could lead to breakthroughs in disease detection and treatment, and nano-engineering, offering new methods for manufacturing at the nanoscale.

"Dr. David Doty from the University of California Davis, with whom I've collaborated for many years, brings extensive laboratory-based experimental expertise to these implementations," Palitz said. "He provides invaluable assistance in experimental protocol designs and sequence designs for DNA, a technically challenging aspect in which he specializes. On our end, Dr. Jin-Woo Kim carries out the laboratory experiments, and I focus on computational simulation, theoretical design and modeling. Working closely with Dr. Doty, we finalize the experimental design, crafting specific DNA sequences and protocols."

Patitz said, "This area is something I've always been really into, so I got into the area of self-assembly and this kind of molecular computing from an initial interest in the origin of life. I am really interested in how life arose from non-living materials.

"One aspect that I find particularly exciting about this project is its interdisciplinary nature." he said. "I mean, we have mathematicians, computer scientists, chemists, physicists and biochemists all working in this area. I've been a computational theorist forever, but I have gone into a lab and started learning how to do this stuff. It's powerful when you combine these multiple disciplines together and get people from different educational backgrounds to come together."

Patitz said, "I think it's really important that we are training interdisciplinary researchers. This is the kind of thing where I think the research frontiers are really going to explode in the next few years. That will happen by bringing together areas that have traditionally been kind of sealed off."

Read more:
Patitz Awarded NSF Grant for Research on DNA-Based Nanostructure Research - University of Arkansas Newswire

Image credit: Reimund Bertrams via Pixabay.

Shortly Ill be debating Rutgers University biology professor Dr. Dan Stern Cardinale about junk DNA. Thats at 5:30 pm Pacific time.You can see it here. The question before us will be: Is the Human Genome Largely Junk DNA? The following are some key quotes on the subject that will be relevant to our conversation. They are divided into three categories:

Many of these quotes are from mainstream scientific papers, books, or book chapters of a technical nature, while quite a few are from mainstream scientific or journalistic sources of a more popular style. The latter sources, while not peer-reviewed technical papers, are nonetheless quite valuable.

Quotes from evolutionists claiming (or repeating the widespread belief) that non-coding DNA is junk and has no function.

Note: Many of these quotes are from decades ago, showing how the idea of junk DNA was born and bred in the evolutionary paradigm. But some are more recent.

Early quotes from intelligent design theorists predicting function for non-coding junk DNA.

Note: There are many such quotes, but the most relevant ones are from the late 1990s and early 2000s before it was widely thought that junk DNA was functional.

Quotes from mainstream scientific sources saying that weve experienced a shift in our thinking that junk DNA actually has function.

Note: Some of these quotes also acknowledge that evolutionary thinking stopped science from discovering function for junk DNA.

See original here:
Junk DNA from Three Perspectives: Some Key Quotes - Discovery Institute

Mitchell Gaff was booked on murder, arson, burglary, rape and kidnapping charges.

EVERETT, Wash. A man was arrested Wednesday in connection to the killing of an Everett woman nearly 40 years ago.

On June 2, 1984, 42-year-old Judith "Judy" Weaver was killed inside her home on Rucker Avenue, according to the Everett Police Department (EPD). Officials initially responded to her home for a report of a fire and found her inside.

The suspect, Mitchell Gaff, 61, was booked on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree arson, first-degree burglary, first-degree rape and first-degree kidnapping. A Snohomish County judge found probable cause to hold Gaff on the charges without bail.

According to EPD, Gaff was identified from "new DNA evidence" and was taken into custody by police in Olympia.

KING 5 does not typically name suspects until they are formally charged. However, Gaff's criminal record shows many similarities to Weaver's killing. His past convictions show a trend of him tying women up and then assaulting them.

He was convicted of assaulting a woman in 1979 but she was able to escape. Then, five years later, he was convicted of raping two teenage girls in Everett.

After his conviction, Gaff was incarcerated on McNeil Island, a prison housing people the state deems to be the most violent sex offenders. In 2006, he was granted release into a halfway house in Seattle.

Two of Weaver's surviving family members attended court Thursday afternoon and declined to speak on camera. Gaff faces the possibility of life in prison without parole if convicted.

Weaver co-owned a business on Hewitt Avenue and had walked home alone the night she was killed, according to EPD. She was a mother, grandmother and sister.

My heart is with Judys family and friends as they continue grieving this difficult loss," Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin said in a press release. "I also want to commend our police department and our partner agencies for their continued focus on cold cases like this."

Court documents revealed how a DNA sample collected in 1984 and tested in 2023 led to Gaff's arrest Wednesday.

A DNA profile lifted from a piece of fabric used to bind Weaver's wrists resulted in a match in the state's CODIS system, a database used to store the DNA profiles of convicted criminals, and samples from unsolved crimes and missing persons.

The database identified Gaff as a possible contributor to the DNA, but law enforcement needed to get another sample to confirm the match.

In January, Everett police detective Susan Logothetti and other undercover officers "surreptitiously" collected Gaff's DNA through a ruse. That profile was used to confirm the match made by the CODIS system in the fall.

Everett police chief John DeRousse praised Logothetti for her work, which led to Gaff's arrest.

The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab matched the DNA sample to samples from a vaginal swab taken off of Weaver's body, three pieces of clothing the victim was wearing on the night of the murder and from the ligatures Gaff allegedly used to strangle her.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Download our free KING 5 appto stay up-to-date on news stories from across western Washington.

Read more here:
New DNA evidence leads to arrest in 1984 cold case homicide of Everett woman - KING5.com

LEIPZIG, GERMANYAccording to a CNNreport, new analysis of ancient DNA samples from the Avars, a population of nomads from the Eurasian Steppe who dominated eastern central Europe for 250 years from the mid-sixth to early ninth century A.D, is shedding light on Avar social and marriage practices. Originating in eastern-central Asia as part of a coalition of tribes known as the Rouran khaganate, which was defeated in A.D. 550 by the Turks, the Avars traveled from Mongolia to Caucasus and settled in the Carpathian Basin of present-day Hungary in A.D. 567568. While hundreds of thousands of lavish burials of Avar menwhich included horses, saddles, and harnesseshave been excavated, no written historical records remain that document their lifestyle. In the study, researchers led by Guido Alberto Gnecchi Ruscone of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology examined DNA from more than 300 peoplewho were buried in four Avar-period cemeteries in Hungary across a span of nine generations. They determined that these Avars practiced a system of patrilineal kinship. This included patrilocality, a system where men remained in their communities following marriage, and female exogamy, whereby women typically married outside of their own groups and maintained social cohesion between communities. Analysis of identity-by-descent DNA connections demonstrated a high level of variability in the female lineage. This suggests that women who married into the Avar community were from far-flung places, but retained a shared steppe ancestry, indicating they were not likely a local people conquered by the Avars. That finding was also substantiated by a lack of interbreeding. In many cases, men were found to have multiple partners, and closely related men often had offspring with the same women partners, in which case widows were likely required to marry male family members to bear sons. According to the researchers, these patterns, in which children belong to their fathers family and ancestry is traced father to son, correspond with previous evidence of Eurasian steppe societies. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature. To read more about the archaeology of the Avars, go to The Avars Advance.

Read the original post:
Ancient DNA Reveals Kinship Structure of Eurasia's Avars - Archaeology Magazine

___ Investigators hope new DNA evidence could get them closer to solving a decade-old murder case.

The FBIand the Putnam County Sheriff's office confirmed on Thursday that additional DNA has been found in connection with the murders of Shirley and Russell Dermond.

The evidence has been sent to a private DNA lab for further testing.

The couple waskilled nearly 10 years ago. On May 6, 2014 Russell Dermondwas found dead in his home in Eatonton. Authorities say he had been decapitated. Ten days later, his wife Shirley Dermond's body was found by fishermen in Lake Oconee.The grisly crime shocked their Lake Oconee community.

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills is working with Andy Smith, special agent with the FBI on the case.

"This is a a crime that has really had an effect on a wonderful community in Middle Georgia, and it has had an effect on the sheriff's office there," he said in audio released from the FBI. "The investigators, the it's it was such a horrific crime. It's really a convergence of events that have caused this case to go unsolved. "Earlier this week,investigatorsupped the reward for information in the case from $5,000 to $20,000.

The agency says that is in addition to $5,000 dollars offered by local authorities.

"This is the first time we have confirmation of a sample that did not belong to Russell or Shirley Dermond, Smith said.

More:
New DNA evidence found in connection with 2014 Georgia murders of Shirley and Russell Dermond - GPB News