#dna identification

James Fitzjames was First Officer of the HMS Erebus, one of two ships from Sir John Franklin's failed 1845 expedition of the Norwest Passage. According to markings on some of Fitzjames' remains, he was cannibalized. This has long been the suspected fate of the crew.

The first season of the AMC series The Terror depicts a fictionalized account the expedition.

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According to the South China Morning Post authorities identified a thief by analyzing the blood found where two mosquitos were squshed on an apartment wall.  It’s reported the thief broke in, made himself dinner, and spent the night, apparently killing the mosquitos after they had drawn his blood.

Heard about this on the BBC’s World News and wondered if I’d ever heard a BBC news reader use the word “squashed.”

Then I thought “Hello: Gattaca.”

Identifinders International Wins Fifth Place for DNA Hit of the Year

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                               Contact: June 24, 2020                                                                            Colleen Fitzpatrick, PhD                                                                                                    Identifinders International                                                 …

New Tech to Enable Rapid DNA Identification During Disaster

A rapid DNA identification technology developed by the US Department of Homeland (DHS) Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has recently been used to identify simulated “victims” in several mass casualty exercises across the nation. The technology greatly expedites the testing of

Dawn Field, author of Biocode, looks at the science behind why some people are predisposed to dislike the sound of other people chewing:

Like a quality antique, the beauty of a genome is that it only accrues value as time wears on. Consumer genetics company 23andMe has just sent out one million emails; they genotyped their one millionth customer DNA sample in June 2015. This means there is now officially a one million person genomic data set. Each recipient was congratulated in the email for being part of this historic turning point and given a “number”. I imagine it would be fun to be either number one or number one million for different reasons.

All one million customers gave away their DNA in return for getting personal profiles. Yet, the data are being used in many ways, most notably to explore therapies for Parkinson’s disease. These studies now also include exploring why about 20% of 23andMe customers describe themselves as "filled with rage" by the sound of other people chewing (or nail clipping, etc). Amazingly it turns out this trait has a genetic basis. You have a 1.2 times higher odds of having misophonia, otherwise known as a "hatred of sound", if you have GG at genetic marker rs2937573 found near TENM2, a gene thought to play a role in the brain.