"You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don't know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue..." (previously) The infamous bear study bought up by McCain in the first debate is one of his favourite pork barrel examples, but little actual information is given about the study. Here is the website giving details about the project, with more info, a quick fact sheet and a podcast. This is one of the rare times when a candidate will air an opinion on science in a popular setting....
posted on Sep 29, 2008 - View this thread

A discovery leads to questions about whether the odds of people sharing genetic profiles are sometimes higher than portrayed. Calling the finding meaningless, the FBI has sought to block such inquiry.
posted on Jul 20, 2008 - View this thread

Controversial geneticist Jim Watson will soon be the first man to receve a fully-decoded copy of his own DNA blueprint. Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule and won the Nobel Prize in 1962. Watson is also known for his frank opinions. Very frank, indeed.
posted on May 27, 2007 - View this thread

Scientists say they’ve found a code beyond genetics in DNA. The study by Segal et al. [PDF] establishes a model for predicting some (but not all) nucleosome placement. This is critical for understanding the regulation of gene expression.
posted on Jul 25, 2006 - View this thread

The origin of life?! I heard from an authority in molecular biology today that a group of researchers funded by the Carnegie Institution and NASA believe they've discovered the origin of RNA, and with that, the origin of life. This new discovery grew out of NASA's Deep Impact mission to study the composition of comets. Specifically, they started investigating a kind of carbon that forms in layers, with each layer slighly offset from the previous one in a helix shape. Significantly, the thickness of these carbon layers corresponds with the thickness of each twist in a strand of RNA. It turns out that the individual building blocks of RNA are capable of bonding to this layered carbon when exposed to UV radiation. Once this has happened, apparently formaldehyde can then bond to the building blocks of RNA on the carbon "pattern", allowing the bonded RNA to slough off into the primordial soup. Over time, some of these RNA strands could fold and bond to themselves, forming DNA. Formaldehyde, the initial bonding material, would eventually be replaced by a more chemically sophisticated substance, creating the chemical bond that we observe today in DNA. Expect a paper on it to be released in approximately three months with all the details.
posted on Nov 6, 2005 - View this thread

Eye Color calculator.
posted on May 10, 2005 - View this thread

How to extract DNA from any living thing. Don't just watch the show, create a CSI lab in your own kitchen!
posted on Feb 11, 2005 - View this thread

"In his talk... [Harvard President Larry] Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them 'daddy truck,' and one 'baby truck.'

"It was during his comments on ability that Hopkins, sitting only 10 feet from Summers, closed her computer, put on her coat, and walked out. 'It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women [at Harvard] are being led by a man who views them this way,' she said later in an interview." Summers then responded with the currently in vogue non-apology apology.
posted on Jan 18, 2005 - View this thread

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.
posted on Sep 20, 2004 - View this thread

not so junk DNA the idea has always made me uncomfortable. now scientists are taking a closer look at base-pair sequences that have been generally overlooked till now.
posted on May 12, 2004 - View this thread

"A single test can now reveal the presence of meat from any of 32 different species in food samples, enabling a wide range of important questions to be answered. These include whether chicken has been bulked up with beef or pork extracts; whether expensive albacore tuna is really cheap skipjack tuna; whether rats, mice or even bits of people fell into the mincer when your burger was being made..."
posted on Mar 4, 2004 - View this thread

"We are becoming the masters of our own DNA. But does that give us the right to decide that my children should never have been born?" John Sundman is a science fiction novelist and the father of two children with severe medical conditions. In this two-part article he shares his experiences and thoughts on bioethics, the Human Genome Project and whether genetics research is paving the way for a resurgent eugenics movement.
posted on Oct 24, 2003 - View this thread

A Cautionary Tale: DNA Analysis of Alleged Extraterrestrial Biological Material: Anatomy of a Molecular Forensic Investigation .pdf file
::From The National Institute for Discovery Science via The Daily Grail::
[more inside]
posted on Sep 24, 2003 - View this thread

the world's first personal DNA storage & sampling kit ~ Save, share, and celebrate your DNA. ”Your very being, saved on a swab, for all eternity”
posted on Sep 1, 2003 - View this thread

DNA used to ascertain race of unidentified serial killer. Florida company DNAPrint Genomics claims their test can identify the race (ie, African, Caucasian, East Asian or American Indian) of a person from their DNA. CEO Tony Frudakis says that "of over 2,200 blind samples tested, the test is yet to get one wrong."
posted on Jun 5, 2003 - View this thread

Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer. "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."
posted on Feb 28, 2003 - View this thread

Data can be encoded and retrieved from DNA --even after multiple generations. Any bets on what the first message ever decoded from human DNA will read? My money's on "Hello World".
posted on Jan 8, 2003 - View this thread

The Diamond Age begins. Research scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have bound DNA to circuits using a thin film of diamond as a bridge. Pathogens detected by the DNA, trigger it to send an electrical signal via the diamond medium to the circuit. [MORE]
posted on Dec 14, 2002 - View this thread

Need a user's manual for your DNA? Sure that there's some bug in there you could fix if you knew how to? Here are the tools you'll need. I know the web isn't relly about one-to-many publishing, but just sometimes it does it wonderfully well.
posted on Sep 16, 2002 - View this thread

Scientists ruin mouse's day. Or maybe, "discover the end of all ends"? or something. This story is begging for clever headlines, and I cannot think of any. Too embarassing. But still, the possibilities raised by this study are endless. Oh, there you go, another pun...
posted on Aug 30, 2002 - View this thread

Alzheimer's gene screened out from newborn. Doctors successfully made sure that the mother's Alzheimer's gene wasn't inherited by her baby. This is big news for prospective parents with hereditary diseases.
posted on Feb 27, 2002 - View this thread

Genome liberation. "Life science researchers -- even those who work in academic settings -- are finding that corporations are just as eager to patent the tools as they are the data, and in many cases, universities are bending over backward to let the private sector have its way. As a result, a growing number of bioinformatics researchers are beginning to look to the free-software and open-source software movements for inspiration in their quest for bio freedom."
posted on Feb 26, 2002 - View this thread

Could this actually be proof of the legendary Yeti? Scientists may have a sample of Yeti DNA. Clone this, and a wooly mammoth and you'd have one Hell of a sideshow...
posted on Apr 15, 2001 - View this thread

DNA analysis of a 60,000-year-old skeleton from Lake Mungo in Australia throws doubt on the "Out of Africa" theory of human evolution.
posted on Jan 11, 2001 - View this thread

A rather interesting article on how scientists how found that people with the same surname usually share some common DNA. This could soon be used to track down the original founder of your last name.
posted on Apr 5, 2000 - View this thread