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Category Archives: DNA

DNA test setback: Mexicans still stumped by missing students case.

Posted: Published on January 21st, 2015

Mexico City Nearly four months since the headline-grabbing disappearance of 43 college students in southern Mexico, the victims families are still searching for answers. So far, the DNA of only one student 21-year-old Alexander Mora has been confirmed. The Austrian lab working to help identify the pulverized remains said Tuesdaythey were unable to find any other match. The attorney general asked scientists at the Innsbruck Medical University to retest the remains, which could take an additional three months. Despitegovernment pledges to holdthe perpetrators of this grisly crime accountable, progress has been glacial. But the case isn't likely to fade from public attention: victims' families say theywont rest until they have concrete proof of their deaths; and scientists have challenged the government's narrative based ontestimony from imprisoned gang members. The 43 students at a teacher's college went missing on Sept. 26 in Iguala, a city in the southern state of Guerrero. According to the government, the students were kidnapped by police officers and handed off to a criminal gang allegedly on the orders of the towns mayor, who is now in police custody. The students were allegedly killed, and their bodies burned at a nearby dump.The Mexican government had to reach … Continue reading →

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New computation method helps identify functional DNA

Posted: Published on January 21st, 2015

ITHACA, N.Y. - Striving to unravel and comprehend DNA's biological significance, Cornell University scientists have created a new computational method that can identify positions in the human genome that play a role in the proper functioning of cells, according to a report published Jan. 19 in the journal Nature Genetics. The human genome is vast, totaling some three billion base pairs of nucleotides, the subunits of DNA. But only about 1.25 percent of those billions of base pairs account for genes that encode all the proteins we use. A fraction of the rest of that genetic material regulates genes and turns them on and off, but these have yet to be fully identified. "This paper tackles the deep question of how to identify functional non-coding human genomic material controlling human traits and disease," said Brad Gulko, the paper's first author and a graduate student in the field of computer science. Gulko's adviser, Adam Siepel, Cornell associate professor of biological statistics and computational biology and professor of computer science at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, is a co-author. "What makes our approach unique is the straightforward combination of DNA biochemistry with recent evolutionary pressures," said Gulko. "Our method allows other scientists not … Continue reading →

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DNA tests can’t identify possible student remains in Mexico

Posted: Published on January 21st, 2015

An Austrian forensics lab was unable to find DNA that could be used to conventionally identity the remains due to heat damage University of Innsbruck will try one final, unconventional, way to identify the remains - results to take three months The students went missing Sept. 26 after confrontations with police in the Guerrero state city of Iguala By Associated Press Published: 12:36 EST, 20 January 2015 | Updated: 04:03 EST, 21 January 2015 Mexican prosecutors said Tuesday that DNA tests could not identify the charred remains that might be those of 42 missing college students. An Austrian forensics lab was unable to find any more DNA that could be used by conventional means to identify them, but said they have authorized a final, unconventional effort. The Attorney General's Office said the University of Innsbruck reported that 'excessive heat' damaged the mitochondrial DNA in fragments of teeth and bones, 'at least to the point that normal methods cannot be used to successfully analyze them.' Failure to positively identify the remains would be a setback for the government, which has struggled with widespread, often violent protests demanding that the students be returned alive, and with relatives' skepticism about the official belief … Continue reading →

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