DailyDirt: Genetic Information Is Everywhere Now

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Sep 22nd 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The costs of analyzing DNA have come down significantly over time, so it's becoming increasingly common to sequence DNA and discover all kinds of biological curiosities. It's not quite as fast and easy as they make it look on detective shows on TV, but DNA analysis has made some pretty amazing advances. Here are just a few examples of genetic testing that you might have missed.

It's actually not that uncommon to find people who are chimeras -- individuals with multiple genomes in their bodies. Twins can end up with a mixture of blood types that co-exist in their veins. Nearly all mothers retain some residual fetal cells from their children (and this is a form of microchimerism). We have a lot to learn about the genetic makeup of individuals, and it's not as simple as one might have assumed. [url]
The male fetal DNA from a mother's son can often be found in her brain. Brain autopsies of 59 women showed that the majority of them had male DNA, giving evidence that fetal DNA can not only cross the placenta, but also the blood-brain barrier. [url]
A blood test can now reliably detect an unborn baby's sex at just 7 weeks old. The genetic material from the baby can be detected and analyzed, offering some advantages over more invasive tests such as amniocentesis. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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Filed Under: biotech, blood test, chimerism, dna, fetal dna, genetic material, genome, microchimerism

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Oleg (profile), 22 Sep 2014 @ 7:12pm

DNA helps fight urban litter
How long before we can test discarded gum and cigarette butts -- and assess the appropriate fines?
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 5:02am
  
  Re: DNA helps fight urban litter
  I'm sure someone out there would be more than happy to send multitudes of legal sounding accusations which could be "paid" with the low low fee of only twenty dollars. Remember folks, this payment amount is well below the cost of a lawyer or even the court costs you will be charged with. The really great thing about this is the complete lack of evidence requirements.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 5:42am
    
    Re: Re: DNA helps fight urban litter
    And that the authorities will not hesitate to use it as a source of revenue spending more time bringing cigarette butters to justice than human traffickers!
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- John Fenderson (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 3:43pm
  
  Re: DNA helps fight urban litter
  Something like that would require a database of everyone's DNA fingerprint to match against. It's technically possible, sure, but would be very expensive (both monetarily and socially).
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- Anonymous Coward, 24 Sep 2014 @ 3:09am
  
  Re: DNA helps fight urban litter
  You can do it now. Don't forget to take a sample of yourself and all of your family members down to the police station so they can add it to their database.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 22 Sep 2014 @ 11:43pm

I Wonder If Religionists Even Think Of These Questions ...
* To those who claim that a soul is created at conception, what about identical twins, born from a single conception? Can a soul split into two? And what about chimeras, where two separate eggs fuse into a single individual? Does that person have two souls?
* To those who ask “where do we go when we die?”, the obvious rejoinder is “where do we come from when we’re born?”.
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- Anonymous Coward, 23 Sep 2014 @ 5:46am
  
  Re: I Wonder If Religionists Even Think Of These Questions ...
  No one knows that.
  
  What is known/believed to be known, 2 kinds of humans have been created.
  
  1 With soul Adam & Eve were the first of these.
  1 Without soul, which have signs in the bible these folks most likely have predated Adam and Eve.
  
  What comes before and after corporeal life has been and will remain a mystery regardless of how advanced technology gets.
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  - Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 26 Sep 2014 @ 4:01pm
    
    Re: No one knows that.
    Sounds as if you have already closed your mind against seeking the truth.
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Anon E Mouse, 23 Sep 2014 @ 9:02am

No test can "determine gender." That's something you learn by asking the individual. The actual story headline got it right: "A Blood Test Determines a Baby’s Sex Earlier than Ever" Why did techdirt feel the need to change it? SEX can be determined at 7 weeks.. not gender, which is a totally different concept. Learn it.
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- Michael Ho (profile), 23 Sep 2014 @ 4:07pm
  
  Re: No test can "determine gender."
  apologies. corrected.
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