Ernestina Herrera de Noble heads up The Clarin Group and the
Clarin newspaper (in Spanish), the largest in Argentina. She is the mother of two adopted children, Felipe and Marcela, heirs to the Clarin Group fortune.
She has been a controversial figure for much of her life. Currently, her paper stands in staunch opposition to the administration of President Cristina Kirchner, who in 2009 successfully pushed through legislation forcing the Clarin group to sell off some of its holdings. President Kirchner recently announced
she will be seeking a second term.
However, Mrs. Herrera de Noble's legacy will probably rest on the suit brought against her by the
Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo, forcing her children to
submit DNA samples to ascertain whether they are the children of detainees killed by the military during Argentina’s “
Dirty War”. The siblings and their mother have fought to avoid DNA testing, claiming it is a violation of their privacy, but there are families who claim that Felipe and Marcela are the natural born children of
women pregnant when they were detained and subsequently disappeared. Ernestina insists that the adoptions were “legal”, and her children stand by her side. If a genetic link is proven to former detainees, Mrs. Herrera de Noble may face a criminal investigation.
posted by msali
on Jun 22, 2011 -
30 comments
The Lazarus File. "In 1986, a young nurse named Sherri Rasmussen was murdered in Los Angeles. Police pinned down no suspects, and the case gradually went cold. It took 23 years—and revolutionary breakthroughs in forensic science—before LAPD detectives could finally assemble the pieces of the puzzle. When they did, they found themselves facing one of the unlikeliest murder suspects in the city’s history." [more inside]
posted by zarq
on May 14, 2011 -
60 comments
The Xenotext Experiment is
Christian Bök's [
Previously],"nine-year long attempt to create an example of “living poetry.” I have been striving to write a short verse about language and genetics, whereupon I use a “chemical alphabet” to translate this poem into a sequence of DNA for subsequent implantation into the genome of a bacterium (in this case, a microbe called Deinococcus radiodurans—an extremophile, capable of surviving, without mutation, in even the most hostile milieus, including the vacuum of outer space)."
[Via] [more inside]
posted by Fizz
on Apr 4, 2011 -
25 comments
The Someone You're Not: "Our packed prisons are starting to disgorge hundreds of mostly African-American men who, over the last few decades, we wrongly convicted of violent crimes. This is what it's like to spend nearly thirty years in prison for something you didn't do. This is what it's like to spend nearly thirty years as someone you aren't. And for Ray Towler, this is what it's like to be free." Via. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Feb 25, 2011 -
18 comments
Poo Prints: DNA Profiling for Pets; "... designed to help communities enforce their pooper scooper rules and give the pet owner tools that help them build a better relationship with their dog."
[more inside]
posted by bwg
on Jan 3, 2011 -
73 comments
"The mist — visible only under ultraviolet light — carries DNA markers particular to the location, enabling the police to match the burglar with the place burgled. Now, a sign on the front door of the McDonald’s prominently warns potential thieves of the spray’s presence: '
You Steal, You’re Marked.'"
posted by Scoop
on Oct 19, 2010 -
65 comments
Less than two weeks after a controversial paper came to light advocating the pre-natal treatment of some female fetuses with a hormone to make their behavior more stereotypically female (
previously discussed here) comes news of actual animal research on causing the opposite inclination. By knocking out the fucose mutarotase gene, scientists in South Korea have apparently created "Lesbian mice" who prefer other female mice and who resist the attempts of male mice to mate with them.
Article abstract, and
coverage by The Telegraph.
posted by Asparagirl
on Jul 9, 2010 -
19 comments
LA Times: "When UC Berkeley officials came up with the idea of asking all new students to volunteer a DNA swab as part of an unusual fall orientation program, they expected to stimulate discussion. They weren't quite prepared for how much."
Inside Higher Ed: "
Unwinding Berkeley's DNA Test"
posted by andoatnp
on Jun 4, 2010 -
29 comments
"Starting Friday, Walgreens' shoppers can buy an over-the-counter
genetics test from
Pathway Genomics at 7,500 stores across the country. Priced at $20 to $30,
the kit claims to offer information on users' possibility of developing conditions like Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, or diabetes. Access to the scientific analysis online, however, costs another $79 to $179"
* [
video | 02:31]. "But doctors and geneticists fear the worst for this new over-the-counter access to genetic testing. With no physician to interpret the results of the test, and no FDA regulation of how results are processed or delivered, there is the potential for consumers to misinterpret what their risk really means for their health and their lifestyle."
* [more inside]
posted by ericb
on May 11, 2010 -
47 comments
In
Sizing Up Sperm, people dressed in all white literally act out the role of sperm in the race to become one with the egg, running through valleys, squeezing through spirals, battling Leukocytes and much more. The results are stunning and the program airs this Sunday, March 14 on National Geographic. It just so happens that Slate also got in on the ejaculation meme, and delivered an article on a story of sperm donors and DNA tracing in
Are Sperm Donors Really Anonymous Anymore? [
via]
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Mar 13, 2010 -
26 comments
Leeches,
horror film staples,
medicinal wonders, and now
crime fighters. Police cracked the case of a home invasion and safe robbery when they found one of the suspects' blood inside a leech on the floor and matched his dna.
posted by caddis
on Oct 20, 2009 -
14 comments
I.B.M. Joins Pursuit of $1,000 Personal Genome The target is remarkable given that the original
Human Genome Project successfully sequenced the first genome less than ten years ago and cost roughly $500 million to $1 billion. Advances in sequencing technology puts Moore's Law to shame: "
In the last four to five years, the cost of sequencing has been falling at a rate of tenfold annually, according to George M. Church, a Harvard geneticist. In a recent presentation in Los Angeles, Dr. Church said he expected the industry to stay on that curve, or some fraction of that improvement rate, for the foreseeable future."
[more inside]
posted by storybored
on Oct 19, 2009 -
47 comments
The winter of 1944–45 is known as the ‘Hunger Winter’ in The Netherlands, which was occupied by the Germans in May 1940. Beginning in September 1944, Allied troops had liberated most of the South of the country, but their advance towards the North came to a stop at the Waal and Rhine rivers and the battle of Arnhem. In support of the Allied war effort, the Dutch government in exile in London called for a national railway strike to hinder German military initiatives. In retaliation, in October 1944, the German authorities blocked all food supplies to the occupied West of the country.
Despite the war, nutrition in The Netherlands had generally been adequate up to October 1944. Thereafter, food supplies became increasingly scarce. By November 26, 1944, official rations, which eventually consisted of little more than bread and potatoes, had fallen below 1000 kcal per day, and by April 1945, they were as low as 500 kcal per day. Widespread starvation was seen especially in the cities of the western Netherlands. Food supplies were restored immediately after liberation on May 5, 1945.
But
for many, who weren't even born when it started, the
hongerwinter continues.
Why? In part because
"certain environmental conditions early in human development can result in persistent changes in epigenetic information" via
DNA methylation. Epigenetics seems like a little bit of
Lamarckism: environmental effects on a parent -- or even a grandparent -- can be passed to offspring,
even without permanent
changes to DNA. (
previously)
posted by orthogonality
on Sep 7, 2009 -
26 comments
An Outsider's View "Over the past fifty years, factions of biologists have had a complex relationship. Some scientists have continued to carry out relatively traditional natural history work, with little need to delve into molecular (or computational) biology. Others have given little attention to natural history, focusing their efforts instead on deciphering the complexities of a membrane channel, or building new algorithms for identifying open reading frames. In some cases, biologists have bridged this divide, and the result has been a fruitful collaboration. But in other cases—such as the DNA studies on whales and hippos—one group moves into the other's traditional territory, sparking new conflict."[
via]
posted by dhruva
on Jul 22, 2009 -
12 comments
DNA Not The Same In Every Cell Of Body. "...calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell... if it turns out that blood and tissue cells do not match genetically, these ambitious and expensive genome-wide association studies may prove to have been essentially flawed from the outset"
posted by GuyZero
on Jul 16, 2009 -
49 comments
Familial genetic profiling of law enforcement DNA databases has already been used to succesfully establish both guilt and innocence. Legal and moral questions on these expanded techniques abound and are comprehensively explored by a speaker at a recent FBI symposium on the topic. In the author's words,
scenarios previously limited to movies like Minority Report are unfolding quietly, before most of us have thought about the consequences. (Via)
posted by protorp
on Mar 18, 2009 -
29 comments
