Tag: dna

Montana Man Pleads Guilty to Creating Massive Franken-Sheep With Cloned Animal Parts

An 80-year-old man in Montana pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felony wildlife crimes involving his plan to let paying customers hunt sheep on private ranches. But these weren’t just any old sheep. They were “massive hybrid sheep” created by illegally importing animal parts from central Asia, cloning the sheep, and then breeding an enormous hybrid species.

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, 80, owns and operates the 215-acre “alternative livestock” ranch in Vaughn, Montana where he started this operation in 2013, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Alternative livestock includes hybrids of mountain sheep, mountain goats, and other large mammals which are often used for trophy hunting by wealthy people.

An unnamed accomplice of Schubart kicked off the decade-long scheme by illegally bringing biological tissue from a Marco Polo sheep, the largest sheep in the world, from Kyrgyzstan into the U.S. in 2013, according to prosecutors.

How big are these sheep? An average male can weigh over 300 pounds with horns over 5 feet wide, giving them the largest sheep horns on the planet. The sheep are endangered and protected by both international treaties and U.S. law. Montana also forbids the import of these foreign sheep or their parts in an effort to protect local American sheep from disease.

Once Schubart had smuggled his sheep parts into the U.S., he sent them to an unnamed lab which created 165 cloned embryos, according to the DOJ.

“Schubarth then implanted the embryos in ewes on his ranch, resulting in a single, pure genetic male Marco Polo argali that he named ‘Montana Mountain King’ or MMK,” federal authorities wrote in a press release.

By the time Schubart had his Montana Mountain King he used the cloned sheep’s semen to artificially impregnate female sheep, creating hybrid animals. The goal, as the DOJ explains it, was to create these massive new sheep that could then be used for sports hunting on large ranches. Schubart also forged veterinarian inspection certificates to transport the new hybrid sheep under false pretenses, and sometimes even sold semen from his Montana Mountain King to other breeders in the U.S.

Schubart sent 15 artificially inseminated sheep to Minnesota in 2018 and sold 37 straws of Montana Mountain King’s semen to someone in Texas, according to an indictment filed last month. Schubart also offered to sell an offspring of the Montana Mountain King, dubbed the Montana Black Magic, to someone in Texas for $10,000.

Discussions between Schubart and an unnamed person apparently included what to call this new breed of sheep they were creating. The other person said another co-conspirator had suggested the name “Black Argali,” though noting “we can’t,” presumably because it would give away the fact that these sheep were descended from the argali species.

Schubart pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act, and conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, which makes it a crime to acquire, transport or sell wildlife in contravention of federal law.

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COVID Vaccine Gene Could Integrate Into Human Cancer Cells: Researcher

Following his discovery of DNA contamination in COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, genomic researcher Kevin McKernan has recently found that the DNA in these vaccines can potentially integrate into human DNA.

The COVID-19 vaccine spike sequence was detected in two types of chromosomes in cancer cell lines following exposure to the COVID mRNA vaccine. Mr. McKernan’s findings, which he presents on his Substack blog, haven’t been peer-reviewed.

These are expected to be “rare events,” but they can happen, Mr. McKernan told The Epoch Times.

DNA Integration

Since the introduction of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, some members of the public have been concerned that the vaccines may modify the human gene by combining their sequences with the human genome.

“Fact-checkers” refuted this, stating that mRNA cannot be changed into DNA. Yet Mr. McKernan’s earlier work shows that DNA in the vaccine vials may be capable of changing human DNA.

Biologist and obstetrics-gynecology professor Ulrike Kämmerer at the University Hospital of Würzburg conducted earlier stages of this research.

Exposing breast and ovarian human cancer cells to Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, Ms. Kämmerer found that around half of the cells expressed the COVID-19 spike protein on their cellular surface, indicating they had absorbed the vaccines.

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GLOWING PLANTS THAT TURN ENERGY INTO LIGHT ARE ABOUT TO BE COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Tapping into the magic of bioluminescence, Light Bio is preparing to ship its first orders for glowing plants this spring. The company provides flora that converts energy into light, making their offerings the first commercially available plants that glow in the dark.

After scaling up production to meet excessive demands, Light Bio says it will finally begin shipping orders for their glowing “Firefly Petunia,” which was so named because its glowing leaves resemble fireflies, next month.

Some plant and animal species in nature convert chemical energy into visible light, causing them to glow. While the majority of these seemingly magical lifeforms are aquatic, some take the form of glowing plants. Among the most studied are bioluminescent mushrooms that glow in the dark.

Some laboratories have been able to combine the genes responsible for these glowing fungi into more aesthetically pleasing plants, including flowers. However, genetic engineering is complicated, and the most common process involves incorporating five different genes into the target plant to generate light. The science is also highly regulated, meaning glowing plants have thus far existed as a laboratory curiosity and nothing more.

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DNA and Developmental Damage from Cell Towers on the Greek Island of Samos: Effects on Insects, Flowers and Vegetables

A recent paper, ‘Human‑made electromagnetic fields: Ion forced‑oscillation and voltage‑gated ion channel dysfunction, oxidative stress and DNA damage (Review) published in the International Journal of Oncology by biophysicist Dimitris J. Panagopoulos et. al. states unequivocally that electromagnetic radiation from wireless technology damages DNA. This leads to infertility, sterility, mutations and extinctions, and it explains the loss of biodiversity that we are currently experiencing on this planet.

DNA damage from wireless radiation is not a new discovery. It has been confirmed over and over by numerous scientists using a variety of experimental subjects and frequencies. But do observations in the laboratory translate into the same effects in the real world? If these scientists are correct, they must do. In the real-world things might be a lot worse, because in the real world we are not exposed to a single frequency or bandwidth but to a whole soup of them, from multiple sources. In the real world, exposure time is not limited to a few minutes or hours per day or week; the cell towers are on day and night. DNA damage from wireless radiation is not a laboratory phenomenon; it is real. We are losing the insects—among them, the pollinators. We are losing the birds. Animals are dying out. We are wiping ourselves out.

The damage to DNA, says Panagopoulos, is being done by the Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) components of the wavebands used in wireless communications. For decades, regulatory bodies such as ICNIRP, SCENIHR (EU), the FCC (USA) and others have insisted that the only way wireless technology can cause damage is by heating tissue, and that the power levels which are allowed protect us from being harmed. This is not true for human beings, and these regulatory bodies have never even considered nature.

Is DNA damage from wireless radiation visible? There have probably been DNA-damaged plants, insects, birds, animals, and people since the first generation of cell towers was erected, but would we recognize what we are seeing? A 2003 study 2 performed by a pair of scientists from the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, studied the effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields on mice exposed at various sites around an antenna park. The newborn mice weighed more than normal newborn mice, and they all had extra vertebrae in the posterior sections of their spines, making them longer than normal mice. This is DNA damage. The mother mice, the dams, produced fewer—and bigger—babies with each litter, and after six months they became irreversibly sterile. This is also DNA damage.

A mouse runs by in a field; would you know that its spine is ever so slightly longer than it should be? I wouldn’t. Would you recognize that a great tit’s eggs are ever so slightly bigger than they ought to be? I wouldn’t. A study of great tits 3 found that birds which made nests near power lines laid bigger eggs with a higher volume of yolk and albumen. That too is DNA damage, and this damaged DNA will be passed on. unless the bird becomes sterile as did the mice in the antenna park study described above.

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Irish giant folklore might be explained by genetic study

Genetics research published in 2016 could help explain the legend of giants in Irish folklore.

The study, led by Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with the universities of Exeter, Belfast and Dublin and University College London as well as 17 other Institutions, studied patients with the hormonal disorder acromegaly and tested DNA samples from the general public to identify carriers of a gene predisposing to childhood-onset acromegaly often leading to gigantism.

They undertook an ambitious and widely collaborative study, enlisting the invaluable help of patients and the general public to set the study up in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.

They identified a particular mutation in Irish patients and now searched for carriers of this gene in Ireland.

The frequency of the AIP mutation (R304*) was found to be surprisingly high in Mid-Ulster, Northern Ireland.

The data suggest that all Irish patients with this particular mutations (18 families and 81 carriers) are descendants from the same ancestor, who lived in the area 2,500 years ago.

Out of the identified 81 carriers 31 had developed acromegaly and over half of these had gigantism (18 patients, 58%).

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HOMO SAPIENS ARRIVING IN NORTHERN EUROPE OVER 45,000 YEARS AGO ENCOUNTERED THIS ENIGMATIC HUMAN SPECIES

A genetic analysis of bones found in Northern Europe shows that anatomically modern humans, aka Homo sapiens, first arrived in the area when it was already home to another enigmatic human species, Homo neanderthalensis.

Although advances in genetic analysis had already shown that early Europeans engaged and interbred with Neanderthals, the latest findings show that those first encounters took place during much earlier times before the extinction of this ancient offshoot of humanity.

BONE FRAGMENTS OF HOMO SAPIENS DATED FROM 47,500 TO 45,000 YEARS AGO

Performed by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and supported by the Max Planck Society, the new analysis involved numerous bone fragments collected at the Ilsenhöhle cave site near Ranis, Germany. Previous excavations at the site had revealed finely-flaked, leaf-shaped stone tools, placing it among the oldest known sites of Stone Age human culture in north-central and northwestern Europe.

According to a press release announcing the findings, “the stone blades at Ranis, referred to as leaf points, are similar to stone tools found at several sites in Moravia, Poland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. These tools are thought to have been produced by the same culture referred to as the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ) culture or technocomplex.”

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Alzheimer’s transmitted from person to person

Alzheimer’s can be transmitted from person to person, discovered after patients who received human hormones decades ago went on to develop the disease.

Five cases of Alzheimer’s are believed to have been caused by medical treatment given as children.

The new study provides the first examples of Alzheimer’s disease in living people to have been ‘caught’ during a medical procedure.

In these cases, it appears to have been due to doctors administering children with a human growth hormone taken from dead donors.

According to the University College London (UCL) and University College London Hospitals (UCLH) researchers, the findings may have important implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease.

And although the procedure that led to this transmission was stopped in the 1980s, experts recommend medical procedures should be reviewed to ensure rare cases of Alzheimer’s transmission do not happen in the future.

Alzheimer’s, the most common form of Alzheimer’s, is caused by the build-up of the proteins in the brain, and usually occurs later in adult life with no specific family link. More rarely, it can be an inherited condition that occurs due to a faulty gene.

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Columbus did NOT bring syphilis-like disease to America – the infection was running rampant 2,000 years ago, myth-busting study finds

Italian explorer Christopher Columbus has historically been charged with bringing syphilis-like diseases to the Americas, but a new study revealed the disease was running rampant thousands of years before.

The first onset of a syphilis epidemic was documented in the late 15th Century in Europe, leading historians to believe it was brought to America when Columbus set foot on the continent.

DNA evidence has now revealed that treponematosis, an age-old syphilis-like disease, existed in Brazil more than 2,000 years before the explorer set sail for the new world.

Left untreated, treponematosis may lead to disfiguring lesions and deformities in the bone, cartilage and skin – all of which can be painful and disabling.

Kerttu Majander, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel, said: ‘The fact that the findings represent an endemic type of treponemal diseases, and not sexually transmitted syphilis, leaves the origin of the sexually transmitted syphilis still unsettled.’

The team examined the bones of four people who died in the coastal region of Santa Catarina in Brazil thousands of years ago.

Pathogens found in teh remains that showed signs of a syphilis-like illness that likely resulted in mouth sores and shin pains.

The study, published in Nature, said the bones were excavated at the Jabuticabeira II archeological site and have been studied since 2016.

Researchers screened 37 out of 99 samples of sequencing data and found there were between seven and 133 positive hits for diseases stemming from the Treponema family.

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Genetic Scientists On Track To Create A Genetically Engineered Doomsday

Bayer’s modified soil microbes could trigger a genetically engineered doomsday for agriculture. Is that what Bayer wants? If you don’t like the toxic pollution from industrial agriculture’s synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, Bayer and its partner, Ginkgo Bioworks, have a solution for you.

They say they’re going to swap out some of the old fossil-fuel-based agrochemicals for genetically engineered microbes. We’re no fan of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, but let’s not jump from the frying pan into the fire! The uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered microbes could contaminate soil on such a vast scale that it could be the end of farming!

You don’t have to take our word for it, just read Ginkgo’s own report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s like a sci-fi writer’s brainstorm of plots for a disaster movie:

“The release of genetically modified organisms or materials, whether inadvertent or purposeful, into uncontrolled environments could have unintended consequences …

The genetically engineered organisms and materials that we develop may have significantly altered characteristics compared to those found in the wild, and the full effects of deployment or release of our genetically engineered organisms and materials into uncontrolled environments may be unknown.

In particular, such deployment or release, including an unauthorized release, could impact the environment or community generally or the health and safety of our employees, our customers’ employees, and the consumers of our customers’ products.

In addition, if a high profile biosecurity breach or unauthorized release of a biological agent occurs within our industry, our customers and potential customers may lose trust in the security of the laboratory environments in which we produce genetically modified organisms and materials, even if we are not directly affected.

Any adverse effect resulting from such a release, by us or others, could have a material adverse effect on the public acceptance of products from engineered cells and our business and financial condition …

We could synthesize DNA sequences or engage in other activity that contravenes biosecurity requirements, or regulatory authorities could promulgate more far-reaching biosecurity requirements that our standard business practices cannot accommodate, which could give rise to substantial legal liability, impede our business, and damage our reputation.

The Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP), involves rules administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that regulate possession, use, and transfer of biological select agents and toxins [a euphemism for bioweapons] that have the potential to pose a severe threat to public, animal, or plant health or to animal or plant products …

[W]e could err in our observance of compliance program requirements in a manner that leaves us in noncompliance with FSAP or other biosecurity rules … Third parties may use our engineered cells materials, and organisms and accompanying production processes in ways that could damage our reputation.

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CRIME SCENE DNA DIDN’T MATCH MARCELLUS WILLIAMS. MISSOURI MAY FAST-TRACK HIS EXECUTION ANYWAY.

FELICIA ANNE GAYLE PICUS was found dead in her home, the victim of a vicious murder that devastated her family and rattled her neighbors in the gated community of University City, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. Police suspected a burglary gone wrong. The scene was replete with forensic evidence: There were bloody footprints and fingerprints, and the murder weapon — a kitchen knife used to stab Picus — was left lodged in her neck.

That detail caught the medical examiner’s attention. Weeks earlier, another woman had been stabbed to death just a couple of miles away, and the weapon was left in the victim’s body. Days after Picus’s murder, the University City police chief told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that investigators had identified a “prime suspect,” someone they said had been spotted in the area “in recent weeks,” whom they believed had killed before.

But whatever became of that lead is unclear. After Picus’s family posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer, a jailhouse informant named Henry Cole came forward with a story about how his former cellmate, Marcellus Williams, had confessed to murdering Picus. Soon, police secured a second informant: Laura Asaro, Williams’s former girlfriend, also told the cops that Williams was responsible for the killing. There were reasons to be wary of their stories. Both informants were facing prison time for unrelated crimes and stood to benefit. Many of the details they offered shifted over the course of questioning, while others did not match the crime. Nonetheless, Williams was charged with Picus’s murder, convicted, and sentenced to death.

Questions about the investigation and Williams’s guilt have only mounted in the years since the August 1998 crime. DNA testing on the murder weapon done years after his conviction revealed a partial male profile that could not have come from Williams. On the eve of Williams’s scheduled execution in 2017, then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens intervened. He issued an executive order that triggered a rarely used provision of Missouri law, empaneling a board to review the evidence, including DNA, that jurors never heard about at trial.

While that review was ongoing for most of the last six years, the board never submitted a final report or recommendation to the governor, as the law requires. Instead, last June, Gov. Mike Parson announced that he was rescinding his predecessor’s order, effectively dissolving the panel that had been reinvestigating the case.

The question now is whether Missouri law allows the governor to simply disappear an ongoing investigation. Because the law has so rarely been used, its contours have never been fully litigated, prompting the Midwest Innocence Project, which represents Williams, to file a civil lawsuit seeking to invalidate Parson’s order. The state’s attorney general balked, arguing that Williams was trying to usurp the governor’s independent clemency powers. The AG has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to toss the lawsuit — and clear the way for Williams’s execution.

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