Category Archives: DNA

16 January 2013 Last updated at 08:26 ET

Police have apologised to a gay man who was forced to give a DNA sample for a national database under new powers for investigating historical crimes.

Former soldier Stephen Close, 50, from Salford, said the sample was taken because of a 30-year-old conviction for having consensual sex with another man.

However, the law under which Mr Close was convicted is no longer in force.

Greater Manchester Police said the decision to take the sample had been made without "proper consideration".

The sample had now been destroyed, the force added.

The force said it was also reviewing decisions to demand DNA samples from other people as part of an operation to gain more information about historical offenders.

Mr Close was convicted of gross indecency in 1983 because he had sex with another soldier when both men were under 21, which was the age of consent at the time.

Deputy Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said: "Following a full review of all the circumstances Greater Manchester Police has decided to destroy DNA samples taken from Mr Stephen Close.

I am very conscious of the very personal and sensitive issues raised by Mr Close in relation to his own case

Read the rest here:
Police apologise over DNA sample

DROID DNA HTC
If u like my page please like my videos and subscribe to my page. Facebook page --- http://www.facebook.com/engineeringsimplified Youtube page --- http://www.youtube.com/user/nithinpanand

By: nithinpanand

Read more:
DROID DNA HTC - Video

DNA Winter Day Ticket Series - Part 2 Q Lake
DNA Baits Winter Day Ticket Series Part 2 - Pool Bridge Farm Q Lake. Join Mick #39;Teabag #39; Price on the second leg of his winter day ticket series as he tackles the Q Lake at Pool Bridge near York. There #39;s Tackle, Tactics and Tips - so let Mick #39;s advice help put a few more fish on the bank for you this winter! Missed part 1? - dnabaits.com

By: DNADIGITALTV

Go here to see the original:
DNA Winter Day Ticket Series - Part 2 Q Lake - Video

AND_DNA is a QUIX4U (inverse) Remaster of Derek Gee #39;s - Re-wired (DNA).wmv
"AND_DNA" AND_DNA .. is a .wmv And it #39;s yet another well made NZ artistical Transformativeness Satirical Parody. by: QUIX4U And is thus an "inverse" Remaster of: Derek Gee #39;s - Re-wired (DNA) However: Derek Gee... in frustration elsewhere.. Seemingly forgot the "reason" I was winding him up.. And willingly GAVE FULL WRITTEN CONSENT PERMISSION .. for us to "do anything" we wanted to do.. FOR FREE. With his Production Work. No worries M8.. I have screenshot that info. And thus have WRITTEN CONSENT From (both) the artist himself from the Production Recoding Label

By: QUIX4U

Originally posted here:
AND_DNA is a QUIX4U (inverse) Remaster of Derek Gee's - Re-wired (DNA).wmv - Video

Amys Little Extras - Little Mix - DNA
Unfortunately Amy didn #39;t know some of the words to this song since shes still learning it, please no harsh comments thank you XOXO

By: TheAmyBarbz

Read more here:
Amys Little Extras - Little Mix - DNA - Video

14 January 2013 Last updated at 14:48 ET

Police powers to force offenders to give DNA samples have been used against gay men convicted of old homosexuality laws, it has been claimed.

In two recent cases, men said they were compelled to provide a sample because of convictions under a law that was repealed a decade ago.

In one of the cases, however, police said the demand for DNA was related to a separate conviction for theft.

The powers came into effect in England and Wales last year.

The Association of Chief Police Officers said police should demand DNA samples for only the most serious of historic offences, but that it was up to individual forces to make decisions based on the risk posed by individuals.

In one recent case, a former soldier said he was ordered by Greater Manchester Police to provide a DNA sample because of a 30-year-old conviction for having consensual sex with a fellow soldier.

Since the Crime and Security Act became law last year, police have had powers to force thousands of "historical" offenders to provide a DNA sample - in order to help solve serious crimes such murder, rape and manslaughter dating back some 40 years.

Stephen Close, 50, a former soldier from Salford, was convicted of gross indecency in 1983 because he had sex with another soldier when both men were under 21, which was then the homosexual age of consent.

Greater Manchester Police said its decision to demand a DNA sample from Mr Close two weeks ago had nothing to do with his sexuality, but related to a separate conviction for theft in 1995.

Read the rest here:
DNA powers 'used against gay men'

When modern humans left Africa as far back as 70,000 years ago, they dispersed across the world, reaching Australia 50,000 to 40,000 years ago. From then until the 18th-century arrival of European colonists, aboriginal Australians did not mix their DNA with anyone else in the world or so many scientists believed.

Now a study has turned up evidence of much more recent interbreeding between native Australians and people who came from India. The findings, based on a detailed examination of the DNA of aboriginal Australians and hundreds of people of other pedigrees, found that mixing occurred as recently as 4,200 years ago.

Reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the results dovetail with interesting archaeological and fossil changes, said study leader Mark Stoneking, a molecular anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Right around that time, new kinds of stone tools called microliths appeared in Australia, finer than earlier tools discovered there but similar to tools already in use elsewhere in the world.

Also at this point in time, Australia's wild dog, the dingo, shows up for the first time in the fossil records. Scientists know the dingo is not native to the Australian continent, where all indigenous mammals are marsupials that bear immature young and often carry them in pouches. The dingo, in contrast, is a placental mammal and a subspecies of the gray wolf, like the domestic dog.

"We don't know for sure that these events are connected, but the fact that all of these occur at the same time suggests that they may be," Stoneking said.

To reach their conclusions, Stoneking's team conducted a detailed scan of the genomes of 344 people, including Aborigines from the country's Northern Territory as well as people from Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia, India, China and those of Western and Northern European ancestry. The scientists looked for places where the DNA code sometimes differed by a single DNA building block, or nucleotide, between members of their sample.

By noting to what extent individuals shared the roughly 1 million tiny variations that were found, the team could piece together trees that showed how each group of people was genetically related to the others and estimate how long ago the groups had become distinct.

They found, for example, that aboriginal Australians, Papua New Guinea highlanders and the Mamanwa people from the Philippines were genetically closest to each other and diverged about 36,000 years ago. This fit well with earlier genetic studies.

But the team was surprised to find using four separate statistical methods that a much more recent genetic mixing with people from India had occurred. They estimated that about 11% of the DNA of aboriginal Australians is derived from this event.

Earlier studies had hinted as much, but they were limited to smaller regions of the genome: the Y chromosome, which is only carried by males, and a type of DNA called mitochondrial DNA that is passed down from mothers to their children, Stoneking said.

Follow this link:
DNA study sheds light on aboriginal Australians' heritage

A new DNA test can restore at least part of the identity of long-dead people who left no trace of their image, scientists reported on Monday.

The technique has revealed the hair and eye colours of unknown individuals slaughtered as sub-humans by the Nazis and of a mystery woman buried alongside monks in a mediaeval crypt, they said.

"This system can be used to solve historical controversies where colour photographs or other records are missing," said Wojciech Branicki from Poland's Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow.

The system, called HIrisPlex, is a fine-tuned version of a tool presented two years ago that looks at tiny variations in the DNA code, and converts these into probabilities for hair and eye colour.

It can be used on teeth and bones, whose DNA survives better than soft tissues, and which explains the interest in using it for ancient forensics.

Reporting in the journal Investigative Genetics, the researchers first tested it on a tooth taken from the remains of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who led Poland's government-in-exile in Britain in World War II before dying in a plane crash in 1943.

Sikorski's body was disinterred from a cemetery in Newark, England, in 1993 for reburial in pomp in Krakow, but was exhumed once more in 2008 for further examination to sound out a theory that he had been poisoned, shot or strangled.

Analysis of the genetic code from the tooth gave a 99-percent likelihood that Sikorski had blue eyes, and an 85-percent likelihood that he had blond hair.

Both tallied with contemporary descriptions of Sikorski and with paintings of him made many years after his death (no colour photographs of him are known to exist).

HIrisPlex also gave a partial fix on the identity of 12 people who had been killed in a prison in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1942 and whose names have never been known.

See the original post here:
DNA Test Sheds Light on Mystery Death

LAS VEGAS, January 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

A High Velocity DNA Tagging system that keeps criminals at arm's length is being launched today at The SHOT Show, Las Vegas, by innovative UK security company Selectamark.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130115/588630-a ) (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130115/588630-b )

Identifying an individual in a crowd or at a distance can be challenging for law enforcement officers and police especially when they are in riot situations or experiencing crowd control problems.

Available in pistol and rifle form, this new and practical concept allows police and military to remain at a safe distance (up to 30-40 metres) from a potential target while deploying the SelectaDNA High Velocity pellet.

By using the new SelectaDNA High Velocity System, a uniquely-coded DNA pellet can be used to mark an individual so that they can be apprehended at a less confrontational time for officers.

Selectamark Managing Director Andrew Knights said: "On contact with the target the uniquely-coded SelectaDNA solution leaves a synthetic DNA trace mark that will enable the relevant authorities to confirm or eliminate that person from their involvement in a particular situation and could ultimately lead to arrest and prosecution."

The SelectaDNA High Velocity System comes in two forms - Rifle or Pistol. Both systems offer similar range and accuracy with the real difference being the size, power source and ammunition capacity.

The Pistol is powered by a 12g powerlet offering up to 20 shots per powerlet.

The SelectaDNA pellets are supplied in packs of 14 pellets to a container. All pellets in a pack contain the same unique DNA code. The pellets can be used in either the pistol or the rifle.

Read more here:
High Velocity DNA Tagging System Launched By UK's Leading Forensic Marking Company

The color of the eyes and hair of ancestors dead for hundreds of years can now be revealed from their DNA alone, researchers say.

These findings suggest investigators not only can uncover new details from centuries-old human remains, but can also help identify crime victims, scientists added.

By comparing genomes across thousands of people, researchers identified genetic variations at 24 different points in the human genome that are linked with eye and hair colors, which past studies used to help determine the appearance of people who had died relatively recently. Now a team of researchers from Poland and the Netherlands have developed this system further to reveal the appearance of people long dead.

"We were able to look at the appearance of people who died several hundred years ago," researcher Wojciech Branicki, a geneticist at the Institute of Forensic Research and Jagiellonian University in Krakw, Poland, told LiveScience.

For instance, the researchers analyzed DNA from Gen. W?adys?aw Sikorski, who was born in 1881 and died in 1943. During World War II, Sikorski was commander-in-chief of the Polish Armed Forces and was also prime minister of the Polish government in exile. He died in an airplane crash at Gibraltar. By analyzing genes from one of his teeth, the researchers confirmed he had the blue eyesand blond hair seen in portraits painted many years after his death.

"This system can be used to solve historical controversies where color photographs or other records are missing," Branicki said.

The researchers say their system, called HIrisPlex, can predict either blue or brown eye colors with about 94 percent accuracy. When it comes to hair color, it has accuracies of 69.5 percent for blond, 78.5 percent for brown, 80 percent for red and 87.5 percent for black.

For medieval samples, where DNA is relatively degraded, this system was still capable of predicting eye and hair color from remains about 800 years old. For instance, the researchers identified one mysterious woman from between the 12th and 14th centuries A.D. who was buried in a crypt of the Benedictine Abbey in Tyniec near Krakw, where only remains of male monks were expected. The results hint that she had dark blond or brown hair and brown eyes. [Science of Death: 10 Tales from the Crypt & Beyond]

Although this research can help reveal what ancient human ancestors might have looked like based on their DNA alone, Branicki thinks the most practical aspect of their work is how it can help identify corpses for forensic analysis. For instance, "some of our samples were from unknown inmates of a World War II prison," he said. "In these cases, HIrisPlex helped to put physical features to the other DNA evidence."

In the future, the system may look at more than 24 points in the human genome "from research carried out on the mouse, we estimate that 127 genes may be involved in human pigmentation," Branicki said. Still, "although research on eye and hair color prediction is ongoing, and we may expect some new predictors, it seems that the main predictors have been already identified, and especially in case of eye color, we should not expect any breakthrough in prediction in the near future."

View post:
DNA Technique Reveals Looks of Long-Dead Humans