Tag: dna

Scientists Create New Material Five Times Lighter and Four Times Stronger Than Steel

Materials that are both strong and lightweight can improve everything from cars to airplanes to medical equipment. Now, researchers have created an extraordinarily strong material with very low density–using two unlikely building blocks: DNA and glass.

“For the given density, our material is the strongest known,” according to Seok-Woo Lee of the University of Connecticut, who partnered with colleagues from Columbia University and Brookhaven National Lab.

“I am a big fan of Iron Man movies,” mused nanomaterials scientist Oleg Gang. “I have always wondered how to create a better armor for Iron Man. It must be very light for him to fly faster. It must be very strong to protect him from enemies’ attacks.

“Our new material is five times lighter but four times stronger than steel.”

Some metals, such as titanium, are stronger and lighter than iron. Certain alloys are even stronger—allowing for lightweight body armor, better medical devices, and safer, faster cars and airplanes. Metallurgical techniques have reached a limit in recent years, until nano materials unleashed creative opportunities.

The colleagues reported in Cell Reports Physical Science that by building a structure out of DNA and then coating it with glass, they have created a very strong material with very low density. Glass might seem a surprising choice, as it shatters easily. However, glass usually shatters because of a flaw – such as a crack, scratch, or missing atoms – in its structure. A flawless cubic centimeter of glass can withstand 10 tons of pressure, more than three times the pressure that imploded the Oceangate Titan submersible near the Titanic this summer.

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FBI HOOVERING UP DNA AT A PACE THAT RIVALS CHINA, HOLDS 21 MILLION SAMPLES AND COUNTING

THE FBI HAS amassed 21.7 million DNA profiles — equivalent to about 7 percent of the U.S. population — according to Bureau data reviewed by The Intercept.

The FBI aims to nearly double its current $56.7 million budget for dealing with its DNA catalog with an additional $53.1 million, according to its budget request for fiscal year 2024. “The requested resources will allow the FBI to process the rapidly increasing number of DNA samples collected by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” the appeal for an increase says.

In an April 2023 statement submitted to Congress to explain the budget request, FBI Director Christopher Wray cited several factors that had “significantly expanded the DNA processing requirements of the FBI.” He said the FBI collected around 90,000 samples a month — “over 10 times the historical sample volume” — and expected that number to swell to about 120,000 a month, totaling about 1.5 million new DNA samples a year. (The FBI declined to comment.)

The staggering increases are raising questions among civil liberties advocates.

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POLICE ARE GETTING DNA DATA FROM PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY OPTED OUT

CECE MOORE, AN actress and director-turned-genetic genealogist, stood behind a lectern at New Jersey’s Ramapo College in late July. Propelled onto the national stage by the popular PBS show “Finding Your Roots,” Moore was delivering the keynote address for the inaugural conference of forensic genetic genealogists at Ramapo, one of only two institutions of higher education in the U.S. that offer instruction in the field. It was a new era, Moore told the audience, a turning point for solving crime, and they were in on the ground floor. “We’ve created this tool that can accomplish so much,” she said.

Genealogists like Moore hunt for relatives and build family trees just as traditional genealogists do, but with a twist: They work with law enforcement agencies and use commercial DNA databases to search for people who can help them identify unknown human remains or perpetrators who left DNA at a crime scene.

The field exploded in 2018 after the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo as the notorious Golden State Killer, responsible for more than a dozen murders across California. DNA evidence collected from a 1980 double murder was analyzed and uploaded to a commercial database; a hit to a distant relative helped a genetic genealogist build an elaborate family tree that ultimately coalesced on DeAngelo. Since then, hundreds of cold cases have been solved using the technique. Moore, among the field’s biggest evangelists, boasts of having personally helped close more than 200 cases.

The practice is not without controversy. It involves combing through the genetic information of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in search of a perpetrator. And its practitioners operate without meaningful guardrails, save for “interim” guidance published by the Department of Justice in 2019.

The last five years have been like the “Wild West,” Moore acknowledged, but she was proud to be among the founding members of the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Accreditation Board, which is developing professional standards for practitioners. “With this incredibly powerful tool comes immense responsibility,” she solemnly told the audience. The practice relies on public trust to convince people not only to upload their private genetic information to commercial databases, but also to allow police to rifle through that information. If you’re doing something you wouldn’t want blasted on the front page of the New York Times, Moore said, you should probably rethink what you’re doing. “If we lose public trust, we will lose this tool.”

Despite those words of caution, Moore is one of several high-profile genetic genealogists who exploited a loophole in a commercial database called GEDmatch, allowing them to search the DNA of individuals who explicitly opted out of sharing their genetic information with police.

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Luzio, who lived in São Paulo 10,000 years ago, was Amerindian like Indigenous people now, DNA reveals

An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi.

Based on the largest set of Brazilian archaeological genomic data, the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities, the residents of which built the icons of Brazilian archaeology known as “sambaquis,” huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings, cemeteries and territorial boundaries. Archaeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens.

“After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” said André Menezes Strauss, an archaeologist at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study.

The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil’s coast. The fossils were at least 10,000 years old. They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).

This material included Luzio, São Paulo’s oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti, a professor at MAE-USP. The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found to date in South America, dating from about 13,000 years ago. The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians, who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago, but it turns out they were mistaken.

“Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian, like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn’t leave descendants among these groups,” Strauss said.

Luzio’s DNA also answered another question. River middens are different from coastal ones, so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later. This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations—into the hinterland and along the coast.

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Scientists Inserted Neanderthal And Denisovan Genes Into Mice – Here’s What Happened

A gene that was carried by both Neanderthals and Denisovans causes mice to develop larger heads, twisted ribs, and shortened spines, according to the results of a yet-to-be-published study. Researchers used CRISPR gene editing technology to insert the ancient genetic code into rodents in order to understand how it might have contributed to the body shape of our extinct relatives.

The gene in question is known as GLI3 and plays a vital role in embryonic development in modern humans. Mutations within this gene are associated with physical malformations such as polydactyly – which refers to the growth of extra fingers or toes – and the deformation of the skull.

Neanderthals and Denisovans both carried a slightly altered version of the GLI3 gene, in which an amino acid at one end of the coding region is substituted. However, neither of these ancient species had an abnormal number of digits or life-threatening cranial defects.

As the study authors point out, though, these extinct hominid species displayed several morphological characteristics that differed from those of modern humans, “including elongated and low crania, larger brow ridges, and broader rib cages.”

To determine how the ancient form of the GLI3 gene might have affected the development of our extinct cousins, the researchers first engineered mice to carry a faulty version of the gene. This caused the rodents to develop severe skull and brain deformities as well as polydactyly, illustrating how a functioning version of the gene is essential for healthy embryonic growth.

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Researchers Warn Fake Sugar ‘Irreversibly Alters Human DNA’

A new study on Sucralose – the toxic but popular sugar-free sweetener – has found that one of the main ingredients ‘irreversibly alters human DNA.’

New health and safety findings revealed in the study show sucralose, also known as Splenda, is “genotoxic,” meaning it breaks up human DNA.

That’s on top of other damning evidence revealed in the study published May 29 in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health.

Theepochtimes.com reports: How sucralose can damage DNA is a metabolic process. When the sweetener is digested, it forms a metabolite called sucralose-6-acetate. But the product itself has also been found to contain trace amounts of this chemical compound. Taken together, the results of this study and previous research implicate sucralose in a range of detrimental health issues. 

“This is not acceptable. We can’t have genotoxic compounds in our food supply,” Susan Schiffman, corresponding author of the study, told The Epoch Times. “I think if it was presented to the FDA today, they would not approve it. The original claims made to the FDA, they just aren’t true. I don’t know how they missed it.” 

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DNA Analysis Reveals Interesting Information About the Origins of Native Americans

Using DNA analysis, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have made some surprising discoveries about the ancestry of Native Americans. They looked at mitochondrial DNA passed down in females to follow the trail of an ancestral lineage that might link East Asian Paleolithic-age populations to founding populations in Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and California. What they ended up discovering is that during the Ice Age, humans migrated from northern China to Japan and the Americas.

“The Asian ancestry of Native Americans is more complicated than previously indicated,” explains lead author Yu-Chun Li, a molecular anthropologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “In addition to previously described ancestral sources in Siberia, Australo-Melanesia, and Southeast Asia, we show that northern coastal China also contributed to the gene pool of Native Americans.”

It’s commonly accepted that Native Americans are descendants of Siberians who crossed the temporary Bering Strait land bridge. However, new findings published in Cell, show that these ancestors most likely landed on the Pacific coast. The researchers determined this by analyzing over 100,000 contemporary and 15,000 ancient DNA samples from across Eurasia to eventually identify 216 contemporary and 39 ancient individuals belonging to this rare lineage.

Through genetic mutations, geographic locations, and carbon dating, it appears that these travelers would have landed in America prior to the land bridge being open. In fact, they believe that these intrepid individuals came over in two different waves. The first migration—or radiation—would have occurred between 19,500 and 26,000 years ago. At this time, the ice sheets in northern China would have made conditions inhospitable and forced people to seek out a better climate.

The second radiation would have happened between 11,500 and 19,000 years ago, when the melting of these ice sheets led to a population boom. This fact, coupled with the better climate, may have pushed people to explore new locations.

Interestingly, the genetic research also showed a link between the Native Americans and the Japanese. The researchers hypothesize that during the deicing period, part of the population from northern China migrated to Japan, while others set off for the Americas. This theory is backed up by archeology, as these regions of China, Japan, and the Americas show similarities in how arrowheads and spears were crafted.

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FBI has IDENTIFIED Zodiac Killer as Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste – who died in 2018 – and has partial DNA sample that could link him to five serial murders, cold case investigator claims

A cold case investigator is claiming that the FBI has identified the man suspected to be the infamous ‘Zodiac Killer’, who killed at least five people in the late 1960s.

Journalist Thomas Colbert alleges that an FBI whistleblower confirmed to him that Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste, who has been previously posited as the killer, is currently listed by the bureau as a suspect.

Colbert claims FBI labs have a ‘partial’ DNA sample on Poste – who has been dead since 2018 – that links him to the murders, and believes authorities didn’t look into him enough when he was alive.

‘The felon has been secretly listed as the Zodiac “suspect” in Headquarters’ computers since 2016,’ Colbert’s organization, Case Breakers, said in a statement.

While the Zodiac killer is known to have killed five people in Northern California, the true figure is believed to be between 20 and 28 people, while the killer themselves claimed to have killed 37 in taunts sent to officials.

The FBI has long denied that the long-open case has been solved, confirming it remains open as recently as October 2021.

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Babies who have DNA from 3 different people born in the U.K.

Britain’s fertility regulator on Wednesday confirmed the births of the U.K.’s first babies created using an experimental technique combining DNA from three people, an effort to prevent the children from inheriting rare genetic diseases.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said fewer than five babies have been born this way in the U.K. but did not provide further details to protect the families’ identities. The news was first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

In 2015, the U.K. became the first country to adopt legislation regulating methods to help prevent women with faulty mitochondria — the energy source in a cell — from passing defects on to their babies. The world’s first baby born using the technique was reported in the U.S. in 2016.

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Chinese team behind extreme animal gene experiment says it may lead to super soldiers who survive nuclear fallout

A team of military medical scientists in China says it has inserted a gene from the microscopic water bear into human embryonic stem cells and significantly increased these cells’ resistance to radiation.

They said success in this unprecedented experiment could lead to super-tough soldiers who could survive nuclear fallout.

From water bear to super soldier

The water bear, also known as tardigrade or moss piglet, is an eight-legged animal smaller than 1 millimetre long and the hardiest creature on Earth. Over years of scientific testing, it has survived -200 degrees Celsius, more than anour hour in boiling water and after flying in space.

The water bear’s toughness comes in part from a gene that can generate shieldlike proteins to protect its cells against radiation and other environmental damage.

The Chinese team said it had found a way to introduce this gene into human DNA using CRISPR/Cas9, a gene-editing tool now available in most bio-labs.

In their laboratory experiment, nearly 90 per cent of the human embryonic cells carrying the water bear gene survived a lethal exposure to X-ray radiation, according to the team led by professor Yue Wen with the radiation biotechnology laboratory at the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing.

There has been a growing interest in the study since Yue and his colleagues published their findings in the Chinese-language journal Military Medical Sciences in October, according to a Beijing-based life scientist.

“This is amazing, considering the big difference between the water bear and a human,” said the researcher who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the technology.

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