Tag: scientific research

INTERESTING: Will this change how crime scenes are investigated?

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https://theconversation.com/you-shed-dna-everywhere-you-go-trace-samples-in-the-water-sand-and-air-are-enough-to-identify-who-you-are-raising-ethical-questions-about-privacy-205557?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

You shed DNA everywhere you go – trace samples in the water, sand and air are enough to identify who you are, raising ethical questions about privacy
Published: May 15, 2023 11.01am EDT
Jenny Whilde  — Adjunct Research Scientist in Marine Bioscience, University of Florida
Jessica Alice Farrell  —  Postdoctoral associate, University of Florida

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Ethical implications of collecting human eDNA

Our team dubs inadvertent retrieval of human DNA from environmental samples “human genetic bycatch.” We’re calling for deeper discussion about how to ethically handle human environmental DNA.

Human eDNA could present significant advances to research in fields as diverse as conservation, epidemiology, forensics and farming. If handled correctly, human eDNA could help archaeologists track down undiscovered ancient human settlements, allow biologists to monitor cancer mutations in a given population or provide law enforcement agencies useful forensic information.

However, there are also myriad ethical implications relating to the inadvertent or deliberate collection and analysis of human genetic bycatch. Identifiable information can be extracted from eDNA, and accessing this level of detail about individuals or populations comes with responsibilities relating to consent and confidentiality.

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Some one I know LOVES “crime” shows.  Often, DNA can “hang” a crime on a criminal several decades after the event.  Recently, we have been seeing some “solved” by “forensic genealogy”.  The DNA from a crime scene can be linked to a family and, by diligent police work, the criminal is identified, tried, and convicted.

Some SciFi shows have said that forensic evidence can be tampered with  — even DNA.

Now with this article, maybe the air, dirt, or whatever at a crime scene can be captured and cataloged.

One of the crime shows had the police trailing a suspect to get his DNA from a discarded cigarette butt or a water bottle.  Maybe now, just test the air in the interrogation room might be all that is needed.

Shades of 1984.

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INTERESTING: Evenings in artificial light

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/4-things-you-should-know-about-your-third-eye?akid=10235.1122391.8sa7Wx&rd=1&src=newsletter813955&t=11

Personal Health
AlterNet / By Scott Thill

4 Things You Should Know About Your ‘Third Eye’
We still lack a complete understanding of the pineal gland — but that doesn’t stop us from speculating.

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Located in nearly the direct center of the brain, the tiny pinecone-shaped pineal gland, which habitually secretes the wondrous neurohormone melatonin while we sleep at night, was once thought to be a vestigial leftover from a lower evolutionary state.

Indeed, according to recent research, we could be increasing our chances of contracting chronic illnesses like cancer by unnecessarily bathing its evenings in artificial light, working night shifts or staying up too late. By disrupting the pineal gland and melatonin’s chronobiological connection to Earth’s rotational 24-hour light and dark cycle, known as its circadian rhythm, we’re possibly opening the doors not to perception, but to disease and disorder. A recently published study from Vanderbilt University has found associations between circadian disruption and heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

By hacking what pinealophiles call our mind’s third eye with an always-on technoculture transmitting globally at light-speed, we may have disadvantaged our genetic ability to ward off all manner of complicated nightmares. No wonder the pineal gland is a pop-culture staple for sci-fi, fantasy and horror fandom, as well as a mass attractor of mystics and mentalists. Its powers to divide and merge our light and dark lives only seems to grow the more we take it seriously.

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Nightmares?

Hmmm!

I’m interested in anything about that!

Argh!

No idea if it’s linked. Nor if there’s anything that can be done!

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Genocide? The result of confused policies

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/4/obama-defunds-snowflake-babies/

Obama defunds ‘snowflake babies’
Program aids in embryo adoption
By Cheryl Wetzstein – The Washington Times
Sunday, March 4, 2012

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While some observers support this move as a way to free up funds for more urgent reproductive-health concerns, supporters of embryo adoption say this is the wrong time to abandon embryos that are sometimes called “snowflake babies.”

“I think that daily we talk to people about … embryo donation and adoption, and we hear the response, ‘Really? I didn’t know that was even possible,’” said Ron Stoddart, executive director of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which in 1997 pioneered the process of infertile couples “adopting” the extra embryos that another couple’s in-vitro fertilization process inevitably produces.

Hannah Strege, the first of these frozen, unique “snowflake” babies, was born in December 1998. Researchers think as many as 50,000 of the 600,000 cryogenically preserved embryos in the U.S. eventually could become available for adoption.

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Being childless is heartbreaking.

Murdering helpless children is horrific.

The problem was setup when the decision was made to START down this path. That sets you up to have the problem of FINISHING off the journey.

We certainly can’t afford the Gooferment; so cuts are essential.

It is just pathetic that we wind up at this stupidity. Isn’t that saying “leaders lack vision and the people perish”?

I’ll drag out my favorite personal realization from the Original Adventure by Wally Crowthier. “If you kill the bird, you can’t get past the sake.” That translates to: “What if the potential person that’s killed is the next Salk who will cure cancer, the next Hawkings who will explain the Universe, or the next Mother Teresa who will comfort untold number of sufferers?”

Imagine 50,000 Jonas Salk’s or 600,000 Mother Teresa’s?

It makes me sad. I know Frau Reinke would have taken as many as she could. Sad.

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