Category Archives: Transhuman News

DNA: How do you look at the field of energy conservation especially when it comes to hydrocarbons and the environment?

Parasnis: When I look at energy, I think of only two very important things. One is fuel, and the other is coal-based electricity. In the fuel sector, we check trends and do some analysis. I see some very interesting trends in India. While the subsidy [per vehicle] has reduced by more than 15%, the number of vehicles has increased around five-fold. In the city of Chennai it has grown the most. Mumbai ranks fourth.

So while petrol prices keep going up, subsidy is being lowered, the number of vehicles keeps increasing. It shows that people can afford to pay for the fuel and the vehicles. Moreover there are also people who can afford to travel by AC [airconditioned] buses. So if we increase the tariff for public transport, but make is more comfortable, more people could opt for it [thus reducing the demand for cars and hence fuel].

DNA: So more people could opt for mass rapid transport systems if they were made more convenient and comfortable.

Parasnis: Yes. It should be made more comfortable. Like AC buses. Maybe the tariff could be three times more than the normal fare. But there are people who can afford it. So my point is that in India even though we say that it is a developing economy, and poor, the data show that many people can afford better modes of transport [which also save the nation fues costs]. We need better mass rapid transport systems.

DNA: Absolutely.

Radhakrishnan: Look at the larger context of energy. Energy demand in India has been going up and it has to go up because we are growing. We have been growing at a decent rate as compared to other developing or developed countries. So when your GDP is doing well, obviously youll need more energy to sustain that growth. That is one part.

The other part, interestingly, is that the per capita consumption of energy continues to be low as compared to developed countries. So we have a paradoxical situation. But the aspirations of the public to consume more and more to improve the standards of living cannot be ignored. It cannot be denied. Yet, as a country which has a large population and must import huge quantities of energy inputs, the strain on our foreign exchange also cannot be overlooked. It is in this context that energy conservation has to be emphasized.

DNA: True. Consumption of fuel has direct link to standard of living.

Radhakrishnan: And this will require other sets of policy measures to be brought in.

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dna Conversations: A sensible policy framework for energy conservation is urgently needed(Part-1)

MOFILM Shell: DNA
O centenário da Shell no Brasil virou filme e entrou para a Premiação Internacional Mofilm. O concurso reuniu jovens produtores de todo o mundo e premiou os ...

By: Shell

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MOFILM Shell: DNA - Video

As the anniversary of Jeff Mitchells mysterious slaying came and went last week for the seventh time, detectives still trying to solve the crime harbor hope that new technology might finally bring answers in the case.

Mitchell, a Sacramento County sheriffs deputy, was fatally shot with his own service weapon during a traffic stop in the early morning hours of Oct. 27, 2006. Evidence from the scene yielded a partial DNA profile of his unknown killer, but the sample was not enough to upload into national DNA databases that could hold a match.

That could change, however, as the result of advancements in the field of DNA extraction, said Sgt. Jim Barnes, who supervises the sheriffs homicide unit.

Barnes said his team has resubmitted all evidence in the case for new testing in light of the recent advances. A criminalist in the Sacramento County District Attorneys Crime Lab has been assigned to the case full time until the retesting is complete, he said.

Detectives and criminalists hope a new profile can be derived that will be strong enough to enter into the databases.

Weve never put (the case) on the shelf, but getting buy-in from the crime lab (was critical), Barnes said.

Jill Spriggs, crime lab director, said she could not discuss specifics of the case. But she said modern DNA kits are extremely sensitive compared to those used in years past.

In the 1980s, she said, a DNA sample might have to have been the size of a dime for a profile to be extracted. Then, as the result of advancements in the field, the sample needed to be the size of a pea.

Now, you dont even have to see it, Spriggs said.

The morning of his death, Mitchell a 37-year-old husband and father of a then-6-year-old boy had typed a note to dispatchers that he was on a traffic stop in rural Sloughhouse involving a white Chevrolet van with no visible plates and one person inside. As time passed and he didn't respond to welfare checks from dispatchers, deputies raced to his aid and found him shot in the head.

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DNA advancements offer some hope in unsolved 2006 killing of Sacramento sheriff’s deputy

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

3-Nov-2013

Contact: Rachel Steinhardt rsteinhardt@licr.org 212-450-1582 Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

November 3, 2013, New York, NY and San Diego, Calif. A new technique successfully takes on a longstanding challenge in DNA sequencing determining whether a particular genetic sequence comes from an individual's mother or father. The method, described in a Ludwig Cancer Research study in Nature Biotechnology, promises to accelerate studies of how genes contribute to disease, improve the process of matching donors with organs and help scientists better understand human migration patterns.

"The technique will enable clinicians to better assess a person's individual risk for disease. It is potentially transformative for personalized medicine," says Bing Ren, Ludwig scientist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, who led the research on the new technique, called "HaploSeq."

"Current sequencing technologies are fast and rapidly getting cheaper an individual's genome can now be sequenced in about a week for $5,000," says Ren. "In the not too distant future, everyone's genome will be sequenced. That will become the standard of care." But, he explains, "There has been a problem with this scenario." Except for the sex chromosomes, everyone has two copies of each chromosome. One copy comes from mom, and the other from dad. Current techniques cannot distinguish between the two copies of each gene and, therefore, are not very good at determining whether particular genetic differences, such as a single-letter change in the DNA, originate with an individual's mother or father muddying genetic analyses.

Ren's new technique, a mixture of molecular biology and computational biology approaches, bypasses this problem. The method enables researchers to quickly determine which genetic variants occur together on the same stretch of chromosome and, therefore, came from the same parent. "This advance has direct implications for the utility of genomics in clinical practice and will also have profound effects on genetic research and discovery," says Ludwig scientist Siddarth Selvaraj, who contributed to the study with Ren and fellow Ludwig researcher Jesse Dixon.

More immediately, the technique will enable clinicians to better assess a person's individual risk for disease, a cornerstone of personalized medicine. For instance, people at risk for a disease such as cancer often have more than one DNA mutation. HaploSeq could enable clinicians to determine if the two mutations are on the same chromosome or on different chromosomes, which can help in risk assessment for instance, risk may be reduced if two mutations are on the same chromosome, since the 'good' chromosome can often compensate.

Similarly, the method, with further honing, has the potential to refine the currently cumbersome process of determining whether there is a genetic match between an organ donor and recipient. A large number of genes contribute to compatibility between donor and recipient, but there is a lot of genetic variability in these genes. The new technique could help determine whether DNA differences between donor and recipient are likely to be a good match. "This will require more study," says Ren, "but by creating a DNA database, it may be possible to more accurately and expediently pair recipients and donors."

The new method will also help researchers analyze human migration and determine ancestry from their DNA sequences. "In principal," says Ren, "you could compare your genetic sequence to your neighbor's and ask if you have any recent ancestors in common. With our technique we can study each individual and how they relate to other individuals. As we accumulate data from many individuals we can more precisely determine their relationships." Such findings will also bolster an ongoing international project to assess worldwide human genetic variation, the HapMap project.

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Is DNA from mom or dad?

Nov. 3, 2013 A new technique successfully takes on a longstanding challenge in DNA sequencing -- determining whether a particular genetic sequence comes from an individual's mother or father. The method, described in a Ludwig Cancer Research study in Nature Biotechnology, promises to accelerate studies of how genes contribute to disease, improve the process of matching donors with organs and help scientists better understand human migration patterns.

"The technique will enable clinicians to better assess a person's individual risk for disease. It is potentially transformative for personalized medicine," says Bing Ren, Ludwig scientist at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, who led the research on the new technique, called "HaploSeq."

"Current sequencing technologies are fast and rapidly getting cheaper -- an individual's genome can now be sequenced in about a week for $5,000," says Ren. "In the not too distant future, everyone's genome will be sequenced. That will become the standard of care." But, he explains, "There has been a problem with this scenario." Except for the sex chromosomes, everyone has two copies of each chromosome. One copy comes from mom, and the other from dad. Current techniques cannot distinguish between the two copies of each gene and, therefore, are not very good at determining whether particular genetic differences, such as a single-letter change in the DNA, originate with an individual's mother or father -- muddying genetic analyses.

Ren's new technique, a mixture of molecular biology and computational biology approaches, bypasses this problem. The method enables researchers to quickly determine which genetic variants occur together on the same stretch of chromosome and, therefore, came from the same parent. "This advance has direct implications for the utility of genomics in clinical practice and will also have profound effects on genetic research and discovery," says Ludwig scientist Siddarth Selvaraj, who contributed to the study with Ren and fellow Ludwig researcher Jesse Dixon.

More immediately, the technique will enable clinicians to better assess a person's individual risk for disease, a cornerstone of personalized medicine. For instance, people at risk for a disease such as cancer often have more than one DNA mutation. HaploSeq could enable clinicians to determine if the two mutations are on the same chromosome or on different chromosomes, which can help in risk assessment -- for instance, risk may be reduced if two mutations are on the same chromosome, since the 'good' chromosome can often compensate.

Similarly, the method, with further honing, has the potential to refine the currently cumbersome process of determining whether there is a genetic match between an organ donor and recipient. A large number of genes contribute to compatibility between donor and recipient, but there is a lot of genetic variability in these genes. The new technique could help determine whether DNA differences between donor and recipient are likely to be a good match. "This will require more study," says Ren, "but by creating a DNA database, it may be possible to more accurately and expediently pair recipients and donors."

The new method will also help researchers analyze human migration and determine ancestry from their DNA sequences. "In principal," says Ren, "you could compare your genetic sequence to your neighbor's and ask if you have any recent ancestors in common. With our technique we can study each individual and how they relate to other individuals. As we accumulate data from many individuals we can more precisely determine their relationships." Such findings will also bolster an ongoing international project to assess worldwide human genetic variation, the HapMap project.

One advantage of the new technique is that it builds on common sequencing technologies and should be easily adapted for use by clinicians and researchers alike. Says Ren, "I anticipate that this new method will be quite widely used."

This study was funded by the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Roadmap Epigenome Project (U01 ES017166).

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Is DNA From Mom or Dad? New technique will accelerate personalized medicine

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DNA : Pricing?

Jain: Exactly! Pricing. Policy. Policy and its implementation. A very simple example, a recent example, is when IOC, BPCL and HPCL said that supply of LPG [cooking gas or liquefied petroleum gas] are linked to the Aadhar card to reduce the subsidy bill. Overnight, the bill for gas has come down. I mean, the full programme hasn't even begun, and the consumption has come down.

And even at this stage when the policy stated that people will have to pay Rs.950 per cylinder and that subsidy will be reimbursed to customers only if they are linked to the Aadhaar Card and that only nine cylinders per year would be available for reimbursement of subsidy, people have begun saying that I will have to pay Rs.950, so why not save money? Im anyway getting that subsidy.

Radhakrishnan: The effect was that LPG consumption came down by little over 10%.

Jain: There you are. I was just trying to bring out where those opportunities lie. The opportunity is right in front of you. And whom you want to really subsidise? Most diesel cars are Mercedes or big cars. Many new cars are coming out with diesel versions. Why?

Parasnis: Yeah. I think when it comes to opportunities we have to focus on specific sectors. So if you take the buildings and construction then you must understand that they contribute to 40% of the CO2 emissions. So if we go for green buildings, you could conserve around 20-30% of those emissions and other impacts and the life cycle costs.

So if you want to go into urban areas or rural areas and want to say we want to have good houses, why not have green houses over there. They were there earlier, maybe with different material that was used then. Or the construction type was different then.

Jain: Absolutely.

Parasnis: All the houses in the past were green. Why not now? We need to have some modification over past designs and material. If you talk about transport

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dna Conversations: A sensible policy framework for energy conservation is urgently needed(Part-2)