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Science

DNA To Solve History's Mysteries? 180

Posted by Cliff from the solving-the-unsolved-cases dept.
ATKeiper asks: "DNA evidence has been used in criminal trial proceedings for years, perhaps most notoriously in the Simpson murder trial. Now, however, people are just starting to awaken the possibility that DNA might prove or disprove settled or forgotten cases. The son of Sam Sheppard, the doctor on whom the film The Fugitive was based, is trying to use DNA evidence to prove his dad's innocence. This week, a company announced it will use DNA profiles to investigate unsolved crimes. Genetic data has been used to determine whether Thomas Jefferson had an affair, and to examine a mystery of the French monarchy. Can Slashdot readers think of other historical debates which DNA evidence might help resolve definitively?"
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DNA To Solve History's Mysteries? More

DNA To Solve History's Mysteries?

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  • DNA test the Tourin Shroud (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One of the bigger legendary hoaxes of all times. Some 14th century pranksters are still laughing in their graves over that one. Carbon-14 tests have been denied performed by the owners (the shroud resides in a chapel in Tourin, Italy.) An argument FOR the old age of the fabric is that it contains cotton, which didn't grow in Europe at the time of the shroud's "discovery" ;)

    Europe was a bunch of trading nations already then, however. If there's tobacco in the mummies, why not cotton in Tourin... Anyways - point is the textile itself could be DNA tested with so minor damage that authorities might find it acceptable. Results could be compared to plants of known origin and "timestampe". Of course cotton and linnen doesn't mutate at the speef of banana flies, but i'm sure locale variants exist, enabling a more educated speculation about the shroud's real age.

  • Hitler? (Score:1)

    by Kabby ( 1265 )
    Isn't it true that we could never prove Hitler's death? Supposedly, we found a body with a gunshot wound to the head but no one could confirm it was Hitler, from what I remember. Or maybe I was sleeping in history class and made that up, who knows. History buffs can help me out here :)

    If I am right, then I think it would be interesting to confirm his death... Or prove that just maybe, that body wasn't his. That ought to piss off a lot of people (including me).
  • Speaking of celebrity deaths, I read an article last week that they're doing DNA testing in Texas on the remains of James Dalton, who some claim was Jesse James. . .

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • How the hell would a tumor have testable normal DNA? Tumors develop because of serious DNA mutation.

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • DAMN! 12 years of child-support payments for nothing!

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • I know that DNA tests were done on women in South America exhibiting the symptoms of the stigmata (spontaneous bleeding from the hands), and the blood WAS theirs, even though there was no evidence of a wound after the experience, and it was *not* menstrual blood. The conclusion was that somehow, either they had wounds that disappeared, or the blood came right through their skin.

    I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
  • Damn: I knew there was something strange about God's DNA-- it contains uracil!
  • After the battle of Austerlitz (?), Napoleon was commited to Elba in the Mediterranean. He managed to escape and go to Paris to scare all the crowned heads of Europe. They assembled and fought the final battle of Waterloo (listen to Abba's Eurovision hit for more references). Napoleon was captured and since Chiefs of State don't mistreat Chiefs of State too much (see Pinochet), they sent him to a mansion in the tropical and far-away island of St. Helena (sp?) int the middle of the Atlantic.
    --
  • The image on the shroud is probably Jaques de Molay.
  • They might have bloodsamples of everyone already, so what the fuss? People don't generally enjoy digging up corpses all the time. Never after a good breakfast.It will pass over.
    ------------------------------------------------ --------
    UNIX isn't dead, it just smells funny...
  • Could we use DNA evidence to get rid of Trolls/FirstPosters/NataliePortmanGrits messages from Slashdot?
  • See this [themes.org] to find out what really happened to JFK. You'll be shocked and proud of to be an American...I know I was.
  • I'm not a doctor, but I have heard of some malady where people "exude" blood. I believe it has to do with extreme stress.
  • Also, the man pictured on the shroud is roughly 6' 10", and the "back" image isn't the same length as the "front" image. At no point in the New Testament is Jesus' height ever mentioned, so it seems unlikely that he was remarkably tall... also, the man on the shroud has a head that does not proportionately match his body!

    The Turin shroud was one of several 'burial shrouds' (and one of thousands of apparent relics) brought back to Europe during the Crusades. Most shrouds were quickly revealed as fakes; even the Turin Shroud, when first displayed c.1375, was widely held to be a badly-painted fake. The owners opted not to show the shroud for nearly a century, at which point it suddenly looked like it does today, leading many to believe it was 'swapped' with another shroud (origin unknown) sometime in the 15th century.

    --Philip
  • And if it WERE divine conception, we would finally have a chance to look at the Son of God's DNA. Would it glow? Adenine, thymine, cytosine, uracil, and THE-NUCLEOTIDE-WHOSE- NAME-CANNOT-BE-SPOKEN.

    Right. I can see the string of nucleotides now: A-T-G-C-G-Y-H-W-H-G-A-T-C-T-A...

  • In 20th America and Britain the cuckold father
    rate has been about 10%. This has been known
    since the days of blood transfusion and organ transplants. Doctors politely say "no match"
    and don't go into detail.
    The cuckold rate in other societies and times
    could be higher, given human nature.
  • Or even here at Barnes and Noble [barnesandnoble.com] and Border's [borders.com].
  • One huge mystery that is the subject of debate right now in the anthropological community is whether or not modern man and neanderthal is related. Presently, it is unknown whether or not we interbred with the neanderthal (which may explain their disappearance) or not. That might settle some debates that are raging. Sadly, it won't settle the age old debate of why the neanderthal died out (disease? outcompeted? killed by man?).

  • 1. use DNA to determine whether supposed linguistic links between languages are causal or coincidental. the Ayrian hypothesis of those despicable Nazis arose because of philological similarities. Do DNA similarities also exist.


    2. the bible has references in Genesis to people groups or tribes. can those groups be correlated with contemporary ethnic populations? such as was done with the black african jews that have the genetic marker associated with what the bible calls the Kohatites (sons of Aaron, or Levites).


    3. are there similar genetic markers among other jews that could be traced back to other tribes, e.g. Judah. *Then* if the shroud stains are human blood, one could look for signs that it came from a descendent of Judah. If not, that would be strong evidence against the claims about the shroud of Turin.


    4. using the fruit fly DNA, one could run simulations of micro-evolution and validate those simulations against all the experiments that have been done. Then, one could push the simulations forward to determine the mechanism for "punctuated equilibrium" that evolutionists claim to account for the gaps in the fossil record.


    5. geneology records from the Mormon church & elsewhere could be checked for consistency with the genetics. unverified geneological hypotheses could be tested via DNA.


    6. Determine the nationality of the "ice man" who came out of the alps. Also that of the caucasoid mummies found in central china.


    7. Verification of Al Gore's claim that republicans have an extra chromosome.

  • I got an idea... Why don't we use this new found DNA technology to prove to the bible [t]humpers that humans evolved from ape-like animals... Whats that you say? We've done that already?

    :P
  • I'm sorry but neither DNA nor carbon dating are anything near what I call scientifically accurate. There are just too darn many factors that can alter the results and swing the data. Besides, even as a devout Christian, there's not enough evidence to support that Jesus lived and wasn't a fictional character of John, or if he did, that some guy didn't die in his place. I've heard too many stories about the man escaping the Crucifiction to write them off.

    not only is the universe stranger than you imagine,
    it's stranger than you are capable of imagining

  • Well, is it nature or nurture? And can you arrange for the Breath of God to animate this creature you have made? (Well, at least we can assure a virgin birth this time, eh?)

    not only is the universe stranger than you imagine,
    it's stranger than you are capable of imagining

  • Who shot J.R.?
    Where's the Beef?
    Did Martha Washington have splinters on her ass?
    Just what IS Chemical X?
    Can you canoe?
    Is there REALLY urine in Mountain Dew?
    Who made-a the salad?
    Was Paul really the walrus?
    Who farted!?!
    Is Goku REALLY a super-sayen?
    Did Clinton inhale?
    Did George W. snort?
    Is Peekachoo a mutant smurf?
    Are BigMacs really made of worms? Is KFC really vat-grown chicken flesh?
    Just what IS a Scooby-snack?

    And lastly of course, is Bill Gates REALLY an alien, and if so can we autopsy him for the discovery channel?
  • I saw on a science show where one of the leading DNA experts collected DNA from lots of Egyptian mummies, to explore (among other things) how much inbreeding the royal line really did. That was several years back and I never heard any results so I think it must have been inconclusive.
  • The Tzar is dead [legalscene.com], confirmed by DNA testing. The other remains with him were his family, most of whom were identified. Anastasia is dead [newstimes.com], although Maria was not identified. Not surprising, considering how well the bodies were destroyed.
  • Simpler than that. As the time of some of the Ripper deaths is known within about 12 minutes [wildnet.co.uk] you just take your time machine to London and watch the crime scenes before they happen. Well, IF you had a time machine. Of course, it would be safer to do if you're not a woman just in case one of the victims was a time traveler...not that London was all that safe anyway.
  • Well, according to this report [discovery.com], DNA did not link Jefferson, Hemmings, and Woodson.
  • DNA evidence has been used in criminal trial proceedings for years, perhaps most notoriously in the Simpson murder trial.

    ok, who read this and was tring to remember which episode of the Simpsons used DNA evidence?

  • Hitler had some very unusual dental work and even though his body was burned before being buried, it was possible to identify the remains by matching to the dental records.
  • Except for the fact that there are well-dated parchments with images of the Shroud of Turin from before the Carbon-14 date. This calls into question that process with two possible explanations of the error. Either, the Shroud's fibers have acquired a layer of bacteria on their external surface. Just a thin layer of relatively recent bacteria would throw the age calculations off precipitously. Because the origin of the image was a scorch and the Shroud has been nearly burnt several times in it's known history, the amount of carbon has been refreshed several times. This would fudge the date by several centuries.
    Keep in mind noone has done extensive C-14 dating on textiles of this age before. Very few actually survive as long as the Shroud has or apparantly has. The iron pigment is from the touching of sacred paintings to the surface of the cloth. A common method of blessing icons and other religous items. The amount supposedly recovered and examined was trivial.
  • How about trying to track down the descendants of the Anasazi people (Pueblo builders)? These ancient settlers of the American Southwest had an advanced culture and abandonded their cities very quickly (possibly due to drought.) Their name means 'ancient ones' implying that they are not direct progenitors of the current Native American population of the area. But this is a pretty hot topic.

  • Ainu (Score:1)

    by JJ ( 29711 )
    How about locating the origins of the Ainu people (the original inhabitants of Japan) ? They appear almost Caucasian (at least to many Japanese) but they are really out of place for that. They now live mostly on Hokkaido in Japan.

  • Actually, the man in the image is 5'10" tall. While large for the time, hardly likely to have made him remarkable for his height. The back and front image don't match in height, they miss by less than an inch. The details are spatially consistent if you lie a body down on a flat cloth. Basically, the front of your body is bumpier than the back. The head problem you mention is consistent with the Jewish 'chinstrap' or 'toothache wrap'. This was common in other contemporary cultures: Confucius mentions his father wearing one (at his funeral.)
    The Shroud is thought to have been brought back to Europe from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade, c.1204. It was supposedly in the possesion of the Knights Templar. A descendant of one of their last officers is the first recorded owner of the Shroud. His widow did exhibit the Shroud quite frequently, much to the dismay of the local bishop who had less-spectacular relics to bring in pilgrims.
    The Shroud has been displayed at pretty much a constant rate (a few times a century) and if anything is now less displayed than in the 14th century. Artists are no longer permitted private showings as was typical several centuries.
    Incidently, unlike most of the other Shrouds, it is relatively easy to demonstrate thru both textile and pollen analysis that the Shroud of Turin was made, and exposed to air in the Middle East. Since it has never traveled there in it's recorded history, it must be about 50 years older than it's first showing. Thus pushing it's origins to the edges of it's supposed C-14 date.
  • what problem? Did he come back and say he was joking?

    --
  • The heat from the firing would probably have destroyted any dna of whoever loaded the bullet.

  • What would God's genetic code look like? Let's dig up His Son and find out! It would also answer the question of whether Mary really did immaculately conceive, or whether it was Joseph all along. And if it WERE divine conception, we would finally have a chance to look at the Son of God's DNA. Would it glow? Adenine, thymine, cytosine, uracil, and THE-NUCLEOTIDE-WHOSE-NAME-CANNOT-BE-SPOKEN. This would definately be a chance for medical science to move forward. We might be able to heal lepers with a glance, raise the dead, love our neighbors unconditionally, etc. This would be a perfect follow-up to Dyson's Templeton Award, as well.

    - Rev.
  • From the article, it sounds like they're having the trial all over again, which, I realize, is [part of] the point. However, I thought they were basically testing to see if the DNA-based evidence could/couldn't convict Dr. Sheppard. Yet, the article said:

    Gilbert used video footage from Sheppard's first trial in 1954 and slides to illustrate his points, while prosecutors used a computer-generated model to give a virtual representation of the path the doctor claimed to have taken the morning of the murder.

    So, why don't they just cut to the DNA sequencing and focus on that, since if that is proven to be conclusive, they can just ignore the rest and go ahead and make the Dr. innocent. That way, they'll also know that if the DNA evidence proves he's guilty (or, is inconclusive) they can either end the trial there and say he's a bad man or they can continue with the rest of their evidence and fight it out that way. The way they seem to be conducting the trial, it appears as though they're just making a drawn-out scene of it all...
  • I've seen a lot of Television shows about the possibility that one of the members of the assassinated Russian royal family may have survived, and lived out her life elsewhere. Does anyone know where the person who claimed to be her is burued? Could they dig her up and see if she was really the Czar's daughter?
  • Well, now they can dig up the body, do some DNA testing, and find out.

    George
  • I've heard that JWB got away from the Army and moved to Texas where he lived into the 20th century. He left some papers saying that he really was JWB and had been living under an assumed name the whole time.

    Supposedly, the Army had a doctor sign a death certificate without letting him examine the body. The identification was done in twilight. There were some oversights like JWB had brown hair but the body had red hair, etc. The theory is that the Army felt they had to been seen as bringing Lincoln's assassin to justice one way or the other and without JWB alive, they needed a body and a plausible story.

    Anyone know anything more about it?

  • It was Maggie. (duh)
  • ROFL! I totally agree with you there. I am so totally unlike my family. I swear my real parents are out there somewhere ;-) and I was switched at birth...but dang, I look too much like my dad. Oh well. ;-)
  • "Is bill gates really related to the devil?"

    :-)
    Gerard "miztic" Saraber
  • I can't believe someone hasn't brought this up yet :-) There are many supposed Eucharistic Miracles in the Catholic faith. They have what they purport to be physical evidence of Transubstantiation (turning bread into body, wine into blood). One rather famous example of this is in Lanciano, Italy and happened in the 8th century. So why don't we DNA test these different examples and see if they at least match. Furthermore, if they do, why don't we just clone Jesus Christ :-)
  • Hmm. Last articles I saw (in the last month) said that it was looking like it could be real. ('nother words, their attempt to debunk it didn't succeed.)
  • why don't we just clone Jesus Christ

    It's an idea that has been used before -- particularly in British SF writer Robert Rankin's The Brentford Chainstore Massacre [amazon.com] . The book is not about cloning just one Jesus. The (very mad) scientist in question clones a whole bunch of them. Of course, little goes exactly according to plan. Good book, not Rankin's best, but still a great read, with a typically high chuckle factor.

    A year ago or so, a little after Rankin's book came out, an award-winning [for the documentary The Silent Witness: An Investigation into the Shroud of Turin (1982)] British producer named David W. Rolfe announced he was going to produce a film about -- guess what -- Jesus being cloned from the Turin shroud.

    So, Jesus Park anyone?

  • There are two, that I can remember:

    1. The followup to the "Who shot Mr. Burns?" season finale.

    2. The episode where Lisa finds an angel on a construction site during a school archeological dig. Although, technically the scientist admits he never performed the tests, even though he said it was inconclusive.
  • This has already been done. Actually, a scientist examined a piece of the shroud with a high-magnification microscope, and found that the stains on the shroud were actually red pigment, and not blood. His investigation was (after 10 years, I think) finally reaffirmed by studies performed in different labs.

  • Well, it's been known for years the legend that princess Anastasia of Russia survived the slaughter of her family in 1916.

    Yes, but DNA evidence has already been used to prove that the woman who surfaced in the 1920's claiming to be Anastasia was *not* the princess, but rather a Polish peasant look-alike, being "marketed" to the public by some rather unsavory types. However, when the Romanoff mass grave was discovered a few years back, all of the bodies of the family were found *execept* for one of the sisters, determined later to be either Anastatia or her close-in-age sister (Marie, I think?). So there probably was a basis to the rumor that Anastasia survived, but DNA hasn't found a match, yet.

    - Asparagirl

  • Other new science techniques are helping out too. A few years ago, somebody analyzed a lock of Napolean's hair. They found that Napolean had been slowly poisoned, as there doses of arsenic preserved in the hair.
  • I thought it was from all the lead paint in the house he lived in on the island he was exiled to.

    Talk about a run-on sentence. Whew.

    Matt
  • I do know that the remains of soldier in the tomb of the unknown soldier that fought in the Vietnam War was identified about 2 years ago by DNA testing.

    Here is the website:
    http://npcc.net/~opert/070598.html
  • Tudor Parfitt [pbs.org] researched an African tribe called the Lemba, who claimed to be of Jewish decent. As well as the anthropological evidence, DNA was used to link the Lemba with Jews, specifically the Cohen modal haplotype. (Cohanim being the Jewish priests.)

    So I'm thinking DNA could also tell us who Kennewick Man [pbs.org] is, and trace the history of American indians. Where in Asia did they come from? Were there any migrations from Europe? And are they related to the Ainu [asahi-net.or.jp]?
  • Just on General Principal...
  • I believe the shroud of turin has been debunked using other technologies involving the dating of materials.
  • That's break or mutation. Not all tumors are caused by the "lack" of a given gene, rather they can result from a few base pairs being mixed up.

    Incidentally in Nancy Kress' "Beggars and Choosers" (dealing with human genemod and nanotech scifi) a group develops a nanobot that basically just compares dna vs other dna (and RNA) and kills any cells that don't match the template. Basically wipes out all illness.
  • Can I temporarily alter my DNA by eating SPAM?
  • I would suggest that it is more like finding someone who was born on the same hour of the same day as you.(that's 1 chance in 8766, much higher then DNA testing).

    You, however, sound like you wouldn't be convinced unless the exact second was able to be reproduced.
  • The supposed last survivor of the Czars family, who escaped Russia after the revolution. She made quite a nice living out of the story for a while, now we can find out if she was the real thing or not.
  • The chicken or the egg?
  • Once we have JC DNA and start the cloning process, will we have the same problems the Robotech Masters did when they tried to clone Zor?
  • Just for the record: They also found that it was most likely to have been his wallpaper that did the deed, since they found some and it contained traces of arsenic. Not a human poisoner.
  • Not now I am afraid:
    kocour:~$ host -t soul microsoft.com
    Invalid query type soul
     I guess somebody must update bind-utils.. :-)
  • They can find out who really committed the Simpson murders! But wait, then they would have to throw out all the Simpson DNA evidence, and that would be just plain wacky.

  • Who cares?

  • Hmm, interesting... reminds me of the movie The Iron Mask, which (I think) exploits this mystery storyline... It'd be interesting to know what really happened. But of course, I could just be pulling this totally out of the blue since I don't remember if it was actually this prince that the Iron Mask is based on! :-)

  • It was Maggie, you fool.

    Personally...I'd like to find out whether Michael Jackson is black or white.
  • in Mrs. Murphy's chowder?
  • Well, it's been known for years the legend that princess Anastasia of Russia survived the slaughter of her family in 1916. I am not very sure, but I don't think it's been proven that there aren't any survivors of the Russian royal family
    Imagine how milions of fans of Elvis would react at the news that their idol is not dead ...
    Or even Jim Morrison ... Or...

    Or perhaps it's better to leave things as they are ... If they're dead, let them rest in peace - it would only be a proof of respect.
  • DNA shows the existance of a soul?

    Please explain!

    Nate Custer
  • >Let's get a few facts straight here: There are >over a hundred billion DNA/RNA pairs in a typical >human's genotype. A given sample is taken at the >phentypic level, and will contain at most a >single billion. So you've lost 99% of your sample >right there.

    Each cell in your body contains the SAME DNA (what do you mean by phenotypic level?); that's the cool thing about it, different cells express different genes though. Sample condition can definately alter the reliability of the results, but in most cases if you have a cell, you have the DNA from who/what it was taken from; you can't only wind up with 1% of a DNA strand from the collection of a sample (DNA comes generally more or less intact, or degraded beyond practical use)..but even that little could be useful in determining a lot of things.

    >Then, you have to hope that the genetic material >in your sample will be genuine genes and not >"junk DNA" -- the biological equivalent of line >noise.

    Very misleading comment. Although we know it doesn't express protiens, "junk" DNA is still conserved (it isn't just random noise from individual to individual), that is two humans have very similar patterns of junk DNA (as similar as their non-junk DNA). It probably does have a use, we just don't know what yet.

    There have been a few embarassments in the reliability of these tests, however they can elminate indiviuals as suspects (if there is a low probabilty of match of from a sperm sample in a rape for example), and are very good at paternity determination to the level of the individual, so it really does work for a lot of things. Just type in DNA testing at google and you can find a lot of links of real applications.
  • replace DNS with DNA :P

    its early
  • On the contrary - it establishes clear links between the Basques and those Irish with predominantly Gaelic surnames as having a particular hereditary gene sequence in about 90% of the sampled population. The same gene sequence is only present in about 10% of the population throughout most of the rest of Western Europe. Those Irish with non Gaelic surnames still had a predominance of greater than 75% of males with the gene sequence.

    Call them what you will but when I refer to the Celts i do not restrict myself to an Irish nationalistic view as dreamed up by those of the 18th century but a more embracing view that recognises that Celtic populations include Basques, Bretons, Cornishmen as well as some Moroccan tribes

  • DNA evidence can also be used to gain insight on the historical migration of populations. Histories have long indicated that the Celts were slowly driven westwards across Europe from the Urals over a period of several thousand years.

    Now the remains of the Celtic populations are on the fringes of Western Europe and firm DNA evidence (published in Nature recently) seems to establish that the Irish and the Basques are the true Celtic gene pool and may be the oldest historical european racial group.

    See this article in The Irish Times [ireland.com]

    Historic and prehistoric population migrations can also be traced through gallstone susceptibility of all things!

    signed a celt!

  • His body is, uh, missing.

    :-)
  • Someone mentioned the red-pigment test that determined that it wasn't blood on the shroud. The most notable proof that it wasn't the shroud that surrounded Christ was the carbon-14 dating that dated the shroud to about the 11th or 13th century (can't remember which). In any case, it's been dated as well after Christ's death.
  • I dunno about you, but when I was growing up, I was convinced that there was no way in hell I could be related to anyone in my family. They were just too friggin' wierd. Supposedly, many kids felt the same way. Maybe we should use DNA testing to get them to accept their roots earlier and move on to more important tasks, like asking their true parents for money.
  • Not exactly 'historic' as this is fairly recent, but...

    I for one would like to see resolution to the West Memphis 3 murder case. The three that were convicted, for more reasons than I care to go into here, didn't receive anything even close to resembling justice. Police needed a scapegoat, victims' parents needed closure (or an alibi), and an ass-backwards community needed blood.

    DNA testing could have answered the questions once and for all, but some inept or corrupt cops 'forgot' to collect evidence.

    http://www.wm3.org


    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Saves Oval Office carpet Presidential Seal by jumping into the line of fire : )

    (well, Bill Mahr thought it was funny)

  • From my understanding of DNA testing, an isolated segment is tested. This segment is thought to be unique for each individual in the world. As much as I would like to beleive this, I have to think that DNA will never be used effectivly to convict people. Effectivly the tests only examine less than 1% of a full strand of DNA. At this time, I can't say that I could convict someone because two extremely small peices of DNA happen to appear identical. The odds are good, IMO, that this pattern repeat is possible in two people.

    Now obviously if DNA tests reveal a signifigant difference, I beleive it can be used to rule out suspects in any investigation.

    And just as a reminder, I'm not a scientist, and I don't know much about the DNA testing process so if someone does and can fill me in, I would appreciate it.


    Bad Mojo
  • How the hell would a tumor have testable normal DNA? Tumors develop because of serious DNA mutation.

    All it takes is a break in a specific gene to cause a tumor. Look at all the other genes and you can do a reliable match.

  • They can finally figure out who Anonymous Coward is...
  • nah... I'd just hand out dandruff with my warez.

    Seriously, though... same as with any dongle type copy protection... you don't hack the dongle, you rip out the code that checks for the dongle. Copy protection doesn't work.
  • Most of that stuff about the "lost tribes of Israel" is all bunk. While there really is an Ethiopian Jewish population, most of which immigrated to Israel after the declaration of the Jewish state, the real truth about the "lost tribes" that is accepted by most serious historians is that they were assimilated into the other local populations. Every time any slightly unusual ethnic group is found in a remote location, someone tries to claim that they've found one of the lost tribes of Israel, but nothing conclusive or even promising ever comes of it.
  • As someone famous once said, "Let it go cause man, they're gone." I think it was Stuart Smalley referring to keys lost in a river of molten lava.

    Stuart Smalley did Daily Affirmations. Jack Handy did Deep Thoughts, which that is one of.
  • DNA testing of human remains is a hotly debated political topic. A DNA testing wildcard could come along at any time and upset an entire civilization.

    The main problem is that universalist religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Marxism and Political Correctness have suppressed ancient genetic social identities and replaced them with ideological social identities. This is an unstable situation. People have spent a very long time adapting to tribal groups at a genetic level. In modern civilization, however, tribal instincts are accomodated only when one's own tribal group is in power over one of the social identity of other groups -- meaning all but a tiny minority of people these days are living in a state of perpetual tribal repression.

    Most of this repression depends on heavy investments in the maintanence of myths. When scientific data on past human gene flows start popping through the "bunk" that is "history", some tribal groups -- particularly those in power -- might decide it is time to press the "reset button" on the whole situation.

  • There was an expedition down to bolivia a few year back to try to determine the final resting place of Butch Cassidy (He was supposed to have died in a shootout with the army and there is a grave in a remote village.)

    There were also a series of experiments conducted on locks of hair, said to belong to Napoleon, to determine whether he died of arsenic poisoning on Elba.

    Finally, I believe there is an ongoing effort to extract DNA from the Shroud of Turin.
  • The odds are good, IMO, that this pattern repeat is possible in two people

    That may be true. But the odds of the person on trial and the criminal having the same DNA are much, much smaller.

    This turns into the birthday paradox. I.e. It *much* easier to find two people with the same birthday than it is to find someone with your birthday in a room of people. It's because for the first problem, the number of paris in the crowd is what is important, so the number goes up much faster than the linear rise in the number of people in the room. (Exponential I think).

    So it's very unlikely, that you'd find someone with the same DNA as you. But it much easier to find two people with the same DNA (and that still ain't likely).

    You can read a little more about it in Applied Cryptography [fatbrain.com] by Bruce Schneier. He discusses the same thing in regards to, IIRC, know plaintext attacks against crypto systems.

    --Ty

  • I remember that one. That would be cool. If I remember correctly the so called "experts" did agree that he was billy the kid. They compared old photographs of him, specifically the shape of his ear. The ruling was that the gentleman was William H. Bonnie and his estate was able to collect back benefits after he died. I never did beleive it. The "Experts" claimed that the shape of the cartilage in your ear is as foolproof as fingerprints and compairing photos of him in the 1940 time frame to older pic's they determined that the ear was the same.
  • Is there a way to test DNS for the presense of a soul? If so I can think of a certain Redmond, WA resident I would like to see tested.

    And a few people in Washington, D.C. for that matter.

  • Yes, but contamination/environmental degradation makes it less likely that the DNA evidence will match the suspect's DNA, not more likely. If you have a sample that's a mixture of two people's DNA, it's less of a match for either of them than if it was pure (given that you test for the possibility that the DNAs got mixed).

    Just like with any other evidence, a documented "chain of custody" is critical, so as to minimize the possibility of manufacturing evidence against a suspect (swapping vials, etc.)

    As far as the time resolution of DNA forensic techniques, DNA in the environment will tend to get degraded to varying degrees, but you would usually still need to use other forms of evidence to prove your case (except perhaps in rape and paternity cases). When combined with other forms of evidence, DNA evidence can greatly enhance your confidence that you got the right culprit.

    Of course, re: the O.J. case, you still have to have a jury that's competent enough to understand it...

    LaoK

  • DNA fingerprinting (Score:3)

    by Lars Arvestad ( 5049 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @11:33AM (#1176216) Homepage Journal
    Common practice in DNA fingerprinting today looks at more than one little piece of DNA (there are some caveats to this depending on what kind of DNA material you have available). In Europe, several regions with small repeated fragments are studied. The length of repeat regions typically vary a lot. The actual regions they use are quite studied, and combining the length pattern from several regions, you essentially get a DNA fingerprint.

    I have been told that the situation is a little different in the US, where DNA fingerprinting was adopted in the crime labs much earlier. A set of sites to cut the DNA has been chosen and the lengths of the fragments produced are used. This method has been critisized for not being understood well enough. This may have changed since I heard about it though. Anyone with details?

    The exclusion capacity of DNA fingerprinting is something like 99.999%. That is, the probability of two people sharing the same pattern is 1 in a 100000. This means that if you can reduce the number of people that could have been involved in the crime significantly, then you can quite confidently convict someone. However, the strength of DNA fingerprinting is of course exclude people from an investigation.


    Lars
    __

  • Jimmy Hoffa (Score:3)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @08:33AM (#1176217) Homepage
    Why not test the old theory that Jimmy Hoffa was buried under the pile of makeup called Tammy Bakker?

  • Re:Good old DNA (Score:3)

    by Bad Mojo ( 12210 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @11:08AM (#1176218)
    "So it's very unlikely, that you'd find someone with the same DNA as you. But it much easier to find two people with the same DNA (and that still ain't likely)."

    The point though, is that we may find out at a later date that the probability of these sections of DNA used for testing have a very high chance of being the same. Imagine your birthday analogy, except instead of finding a similar birthday, you're looking for someone with a 2 as the last digit in the month section. There's no doubt in my mind that if we were compariing two complete strands of DNA, we could find differences.

    AFAIK, there's a chance that an complete DNA strand from one person might be somewhat different after 2 months.


    Bad Mojo

  • JFK (Score:3)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @08:17AM (#1176219)
    Given that even the slightest physical contact will leave DNA, howzabout examining JFK's magic bullet? Obviously you'd have to discount all the CIA DNA because they investigated the cubans and would probably have to handle the bullet. Oh, and the FBI probably examined it too. The mafia probably sold the bullet to Oswa^Hthe killer, so all that mafia dna would have to be thrown out as well. And if the CIA were talking to the cubans, then Castro's DNA could be eliminated as well.
    All that superfluous DNA would probably mask Oswald's, so his probably wouldn't appear on the bullet. But as we've eliminated everyone else, it must have been him.

  • Re:Its not just DNA (Score:3)

    by crush ( 19364 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @11:01AM (#1176220)
    Seeing as your moniker is "Dead Sea" this should be appropriate:

    the Dead Sea scrolls are in large part thumbnail sized fragments that are damned hard to piece together. That hasn't stopped all sorts of scholars trying to do it (mostly with selotape). Interestingly you can now sequence the mtDNA (mitochondrial D-loop mutates very fast providing fine resolution distinction between individuals) of part of each fragment. This reveals whether the skin the fragments are written on all come from the same type of organism (within certain resolution limits). They've found that some of pieces come from goats and others from a springbok-like creature, so they should definitely not be put together. They claim that they're also able to identify the "herd" that each piece came from. I'm not so sure about that but it may be possible.

  • Well... (Score:3)

    by Keelor ( 95571 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @08:03AM (#1176221)
    Personally, I've always been curious what would have happened if Jesus had been born in the age of paternity testing. If/when the second coming happens, I have a feeling he's going to have a bit more explaining to do ;)

    (The above post is meant as a _joke_, not meant to offend anyone)

    ~=Keelor

  • Cult of Dead-who-aren't-dead (OT) (Score:4)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @08:29AM (#1176222) Homepage
    You know, this idea of the celebrity death that didn't really happen isn't a new one. Sure, we have examples of Elvis or Jim Morrison or even Anastasia. But the practice goes back much much further. The Emperor Nero, who some have called one of the most hated emperors of ancient Rome, had a notable cult following after his death and there were many 'false Neros' in the fifty or so years after his (supposed) death. Jesus Christ's resurrection is assumed by many scholars to be a manifestation of this tendency for humans to not accept the death of people they deem important (coupled with a grave-robbing, a practice which was prevalent at the time, prevalent enough that they emperor issued a decree outlawing it). The reasons why people assume that such people aren't dead is unclear, but most of the times, it's just disbelief that the person could be dead. Look at our own Propaganda. JFK is alive and well and leading the charge against Redmond, fighting for the democratic ideals he must have died for (nevermind that he got us into Vietnam, supported the whole Bay of Pigs fiasco, and manipulated government to his own personal whims).

    Should we disprove these ideas? I say no. Elvis fans happen to like thinking that Elvis is alive. It gives them comfort and solace which the real world can't give them. Some people will never accept the truth, and trying to rub it in their face will only exacerbate the problem.

    As someone famous once said, "Let it go cause man, they're gone." I think it was Stuart Smalley referring to keys lost in a river of molten lava.

  • DNS? (Score:5)

    by Pope ( 17780 ) on Friday March 24, 2000 @08:12AM (#1176223)
    PING soul.bill.microsoft.com
    waiting...
    waiting...
    waiting...
    Connection timed out.

    Pope

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