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Posts Tagged ‘DNA

Another fun fact (not in the article): mitochondrial DNA can be used to tell who his mom was, too.
clipped from www.sciencedaily.com
developing techniques which may one day allow police to work out someone’s surname from the DNA alone
Doctoral research by Turi King has shown that men with the same British surname are highly likely to be genetically linked.
the Y chromosome, is the one part of our genetic material that confers maleness and is passed, like surnames, from father to son. Therefore, a link could exist between a man’s surname and the type of Y chromosome he carries. A simple link between name and Y chromosome could in principle connect all men sharing a surname into one large family tree.
each name may have had several founders. Events such as adoptions, name-changes and non-paternities would confuse any simple genetic link.
between two men who share the same surname there is a 24% chance of sharing a common ancestor through that name but that this increases to nearly 50% if the surname they have is rare
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clipped from blog.wired.com

Some people have a mutation that makes them amazingly resistant to HIV — and now, scientists may have found a way to give that immunity to anyone.
Viruses enter cells and take them over, but to get inside, they need a handhold. HIV pulls itself in by grabbing onto a protein called CCR5, which decorates the surface of T-cells, which are one of the two major types of white blood cells and play an important role in helping the body fight infections. Back in the 1990’s, researchers took interest in a handful of promiscuous gay men who were able to engage in sexual relations with their HIV-positive partners with impunity. Most of them had a mutation that kept their cells from producing normal CCR5 protein.
Armed with that knowledge, scientists have developed several tactics to block the production of CCR5 or perturb its shape so that the HIV virus can’t grab onto it during the first step of its hijacking attempt
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