judge order dna tests on texas sect children

the 416 children taken from the Texas community, "Yearning for Zion," a fundamentalist church of the jesus christ of latter day saints, will undergo dna tests in order to determine which parents each child belongs to.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7355779.stm

my question is, in this type of community, don't the children belong to ALL of the parents???
it appears that this tragic case will not be resolved any time soon.

Art Imitates Life in High-tech Seoul (posted by Esther)

.........genetic testing a now luxury?

From Australia's The Age:

"There's everything for the sleek geek in this city's hotels, writes Christina Pfeiffer.

Seoul's booming luxury hotel market is being driven less by international visitors than by the city's 10 million technology-savvy residents. Many Koreans live in small apartments with extended family, so inner-city weekends away are highly appealing.

To meet the demand, the five-star hotel chains, known here as super-deluxe, have colonised the city in the past few years.

Some hotels are going to great lengths to create environments and services to attract tech-savvy city dwellers. High-speed internet, flat-screen displays and fitness clubs equipped with the latest exercise gear are becoming standard.

The Samsung-owned Shilla Hotel offers a mobile phone in every guest room (guests pay for calls) among its high-tech refinements. Television volumes are linked to the in-room phones and automatically decrease when the phones are engaged; bathroom lights brighten gradually (handy for late-night visits) and toilets have an array of comfort features.

Wireless services extend to the hotel's sculpture garden. And there is an anti-ageing clinic offering state-of-the-art programs including genetic and heavy-metal contamination testing."

more at:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/seoul/hightech-luxury/2008/04/03/1206851076987.html

Genetic Design

One of our readings this week dealt with the hereditary possibilities of artistic talent. This is an uncertain topic, but some artists are certainly fascinated with genetics! I ran into these designs written by Ludvine Lechat for the program NodeBox, which is a python based graphics experimentation environment:

This project, actually a postgraduate program at Transmedia called 'Graphic Cellular Domestication' generates images, (instead of canvases, Lechat calls them 'tissues') which are compositions of heirarchies of 'cell' graphics, based on some basic genetic flavored algorithms.
But these images, based on Lechat's work, are more interesting to me. Maybe us:

Since NodeBox also has animation/interactivity capabilities, The author of the 'Evolution' library has extended graphic cellular domestication to include graphic evolution, genetic recombination, and natural (or mathematical) selection. I like this guy:

You can watch movies of this in action by following the link:

Creatures pit their strengths against each other in the arena. Here, they get to fly around, flock together, hunt down enemies, struggle for survival. In the example below, the Docole is pitted against three of the Timude species, which is kind of a long and boring match because the predator is way to dumb to catch any of Timude, and the Timude are way to weak to fight the Docole. What you get is a lot of running around in circles.

There are a number of other genetically (or more or less, survival of the fittest) inclined, wonderful games available. For example, if you have a PC, a maternal drive, and an interest in genetic experiments, i suggest checking out Creatures 1 or 2.
In these games you bred and spliced creatures, and could (using the 'genetics kit') create and edit your own genomes, and then watch them in action. Because they evolved, large communities formed around them, exchanging genomes, duplicating/distributing ideal 'types' and writing more nutritious versions of the fruits and vegetables in the world. Which also reproduced, but i'm not sure how much evolution went on in the agricultural side of the game...
Another game that mac users are anticipating the release of is: SPORE by Maxis, the same company which developed Sim City and 'the sims'.

DNA BASED COMPUTERS, what? SCIENTISTS WRITE CODE INTO LIVING ORGANISMS (posted by Lale)

My zine will be on this topic but till then...

"DNA computing is a form of computing which uses DNA, biochemistry and molecular biology, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies. DNA computing, or, more generally, molecular computing, is a fast developing interdisciplinary area. R&D in this area concerns theory, experiments and applications of DNA computing."-Wikipedia. that was vague.

"Scientists have written a message into the DNA of a living organism, a breakthrough they believe could lead to a new era of organic computers capable of healing themselves if damaged. The researchers encoded Einstein's most famous equation and most prolific year into the genome of one the hardiest strains of bacteria in the world, Bacillus subtilis. The characters "E=MC^2 1905!" were then read from the bacterium at a later date by analysing its genetic sequence."- from the guardian, see rest of article HERE.

HERE is another simple and vague description of DNA based computing at howstuffworks.com

DNA computing is an extremely new field of science beginning in the early 90's (Adleman's experiments in 1994). The first DNA based computer could solve problems with up to only 9 variables for the answer, just in 2000 the biggest breakthrough was one which could solve problems with up to 20 variables.

In 2003 another breakthrough in DNA computing was made, read HERE.

More to come soon!

LECTURE ON SYNTHETIC DNA CREATION (posted by Lale)

This video is kind of lengthy and the guy (Craig Venter) is not that great a speaker in my opinion but if you were in the lab all the time you'd probably be the same. Take what you can from it, its pretty incredible. Actually the whole collection of lectures in this series is amazing.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO VIDEO!

enjoy. (also, check out the lecture video about Memes, non-physical "viral" organisms composed entirely of information.)

America's first 'test tube' twins turn 25 (posted by Esther)

Heather Tilton and her brother, Todd Tilton II, are ordinary siblings with an extraordinary message. The first twins born in America through in vitro fertilization, they want people to know that their parents’ refusal to take “no” for an answer is as relevant today as it was when they were conceived in a laboratory 25 years ago this month.

“We’re here to extend the message that there is hope,” said Todd Tilton, who appeared with his sister on TODAY on Tuesday.

“Throughout our lives, the message of ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’ has resonated,” added Heather Tilton, who works for a New York financial firm.

With them was their mother, Nan Tilton, 56, who had been told that she and her husband, Todd Tilton, Sr., would never have children and should quit trying. She was 30 years old in 1982 and the couple had been married for eight years and been trying to conceive for six.

But her fallopian tubes were blocked and his sperm count was low, and even after five surgeries between the two of them, their chances of conceiving were still virtually zero.

“We tried every technique and were told we would never have a child,” she told TODAY’s Ann Curry. That news was, she said, “absolute heartbreak.”

more of the article and an interview : http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23898180/?GT1=43001

Earlier puberty & the causes?

Although still a matter of much controversy - it seems like females are reaching puberty sooner than in times past - why? An article from Britain's Daily Mail summarizes some of the hypotheses out there:

So what is the cause of precocious puberty? While experts aren't able to give a single explanation, numerous theories exist.

One is that improved nutrition is a factor, as the onset of puberty is believed to be linked to physical size.

Another theory is that the epidemic of childhood obesity is to blame: heavier girls begin their periods earlier due to an increase of the puberty-triggering hormone leptin, which is stored in fat cells.

"There is a relationship between childhood nutrition and the age that people pass through puberty,' says Mark Bellis, Professor of Public Health at Liverpool's John Moores University.

"Having a calorie-rich diet in childhood, and being obese, brings the age of puberty down."

Modern social conditions have also been touted as a contributory factor - with research suggesting that children from broken homes experience earlier puberty as the stress of a family breakdown alters the balance of growth hormones.

The arrival of a stepfather in the family home produces new and unfamiliar pheromones, chemicals which are believed to hasten the arrival of puberty.

"Single-parent families and divorce cause stress that can also change the age of puberty a little, too," says Mark Bellis.

Early puberty has even been linked to watching too much television - Italian researchers found that children who watched three hours of TV a day produced less of the sleep hormone melatonin, low levels of which play an important role in the timing of puberty.

The content of today's television may also be to blame, with young children subjected to increasingly sexualised programmes from an early age. Research has shown that watching such images produces increased hormones.

Another theory is that exposure to chemicals in the environment - which mimic the effects of hormones - is causing the drop in puberty age and disrupting the normal timing of sexual maturation.

Here are some links to articles concerning specific hypotheses:

Environmental pollutants
Obesity
TV

Does cosmic radiation hasten terrestrial evolution at times?

In regards to the discussion in class this week - a reference to the idea that reversals in the earth's magnetic field may permit cosmic radiation that could in principle hasten the mutation rates of organisms, go to this link:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v250/n5467/abs/250563a0.html

Environmental Plastics and Breast Cancer Risk

Bisphenol A, a compound that is common byproduct in many plastics. Recent studies have given support to the suspicion that it acts as an "endocrine disruptor" that mimics the effect of the feamle hormone estrogen - signaling breast cells to expres genes that can lead to cancerous growth of breast cells.

For more about this lateset study, go HERE

UK's first hybrid embryos created (Posted by Meekus)

By Fergus Walsh
Medical correspondent, BBC News



They may look like any three-day-old embryos, but in fact these are hybrids

Scientists at Newcastle University have created part-human, part-animal hybrid embryos for the first time in the UK, the BBC can reveal.

The embryos survived for up to three days and are part of medical research into a range of illnesses.

It comes a month before MPs are to debate the future of such research.

The Catholic Church describes it as "monstrous". But medical bodies and patient groups say such research is vital for our understanding of disease.

They argue that the work could pave the way for new treatments for conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Egg shortages
Under the microscope the round bundles of cells look like any other three-day-old embryos.

In fact they are hybrids - part-human, part-animal.
They were created by injecting DNA derived from human skin cells into eggs taken from cows ovaries which have had virtually all their genetic material removed.

So what possible justification can scientists offer for doing what the Catholic Church has branded "experiments of Frankenstein proportion"?

The Newcastle team say they are using cow ovaries because human eggs from donors are a precious resource and in short supply.

The hybrid embryos are purely for research and would never be allowed to develop beyond 14 days when they are still smaller than a pinhead.

Scientists want to extract stem cells, the body's master cells, from the embryos, in order to increase understanding of a whole range of diseases from diabetes to stroke and ultimately to produce treatments.

Professor John Burn from Newcastle University says the research is entirely ethical.

"This is licensed work which has been carefully evaluated. This is a process in a dish, and we are dealing with a clump of cells which would never go on to develop. It's a laboratory process and these embryos would never be implanted into anyone.

"We now have preliminary data which looks promising but this is very much work in progress and the next step is to get the embryos to survive to around six days when we can hopefully derive stem cells from them."
Free vote allowed
The research in Newcastle was approved by the UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
It acted ahead of the passing of new legislation which will specifically allow the creation of hybrid embryos so as not to hold back research.

The bill setting out the new legislation is not due to be debated in the House of Commons until next month. It is highly controversial and last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave in to demands for a free vote on the issue.

Critics from the Roman Catholic Church say the creation of hybrids is immoral.

"It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which more comprehensively attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular bill," Cardinal Keith O'Brien, archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh declared last week.

Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert, said: "For anyone who understands basic biology, it is no surprise that these embryos died at such an early stage.

"Cloning is inefficient precisely because it is so unnatural, and by mixing species it becomes even more unnatural and unlikely to succeed.

"The public has been grossly misled by the hype that this is vital medical research.

"Even if stem cells were ever to be produced, like cloned animals, they would have so many errors of their metabolism that they would produce completely misleading data."

Not for the first time developments in science have outpaced the debate from legislators.

For supporters of embryo research the creation of hybrid embryos is a small but significant move forward.

For opponents it is a step too far.