King Tut's death unwrapped!

"After conducting extensive DNA analysis on King Tutankhamen's remains, researchers believe they've uncovered details of his lineage, and found that he died of one of the world's most prevalent modern-day diseases: malaria." from AlJazeera



_Ashley T.

Brain Development in the Womb linked to Hug Avoidance

A study with mice shows that understanding the development of fragile x syndrome, may explain touch sensitivity in people with autism.

Read more here...

-India

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/02/pentagon-looks-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included/#ixzz0eyLlj5C0

posted by silas

Genes reveal 'biological ageing'

Quite a headline - fits in eerily well with our discussion in class about various ways the media portrays genetic findings as we compared headlines discussing aging and the p63 gene.

Here from the news today, the BBC reports on findings concerning the rates at which people age possibly detected on the genetic level:

"What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate"

Interesting to note the term "program" in relation to genetic information in the cell...

The article focuses on "telomeres" which are DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes. They are important enough that last year's Nobel Prize in Physiology was granted to Elizabeth Blackburn and colleagues because of their discoveries of telomeric function.

AY

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'.