Word: dna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...SCIENCE: DNA from Dinosaurs...
Anyone who thought Jurassic Park was farfetched should talk to molecular biologist Scott Woodward. In last week's Science, Woodward announced that he had isolated DNA from an ancient creature that he was 90% sure was a dinosaur. If enough of it were collected, such a sample could, in theory, be cloned into a living specimen -- just like in the movies. Woodward, an associate professor at Brigham Young University, extracted the DNA from two bone fragments found in a Utah coal mine, where they had been protected by muck and never fossilized...
...does this mean that a dinosaur assembly plant is on the way? Don't hold your breath. The sections of DNA that Woodward collected are much too short for any practical use. The full complement of genes needed to create an organism contains billions of nucleic acid pairs. Woodward found 174 pairs, too few to be certain what animal they came from. "The pieces are so short that you can't say they are like one thing or another," says Ward Wheeler, a molecular biologist at the American Museum of Natural History. "It could be a turtle or a mammal...
...plate. Customs officials frequently seize illegal shipments on the way into the country. But plenty slips through, and a recent study published in Science suggests that some of it comes from whales that can't be hunted legally. Investigators bought whale meat in retail markets all over ! Japan. Using DNA tests, researchers found that some of it came from fin whales, humpbacks and other protected species. "We were stunned to find humpback being sold in a Hiroshima supermarket," says Don White, president of Earthtrust, the Hawaii-based group that sponsored the study. "They've been protected since...
...There is an irony in this new acceptance of DNA fingerprinting," Koshland says in his editorial. "Ink fingerprinting went through the same type of debate, with questions about whether more than one person could have the same print, whether there could be abuse by police, whether there would be care in sample taking, and so on."Probe and Run an Autoradlograph The membrane is soaked in a solution containing microscopic radioactive probes, which bind to speclife parts of the DNA molecule. The strands are then exposed on X-ray him. When the firm is developed, the strand with the probe...