Word: dna
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hunkered down during the glacial age. "This research changes the whole debate about Europe, shifts it back in time from the Neolithic era of farming to the Paleolithic era of hunter-gatherers," says Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford and a pioneer of mitochondrial DNA analysis. "There's now a much clearer sense that the genes we carry lived through the Ice Age, that our ancestors were hunting bison and reindeer with essentially the same genetic makeup we have today...
...Like any other scientific innovation, tracing founder lineages through the Y chromosome of men or the mitochondrial DNA of women is open to many questions. Some scientists think, for instance, that even the relatively high number of samples - whether a lock of hair or a dollop of saliva - used in the most recent studies is still too small to give a full picture of genetic variation. Others harbor doubts that the rate of mutation of mitochondrial DNA is constant enough to support conclusions about chronological dating. "Physical anthropology remains the gold standard for dating," says geneticist Mark Stoneking...
...reconstructing your family tree. For the really deep stuff, you must look to your genes, and Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford, is there to help you. His company, Oxford Ancestors (motto: "We put the Genes in Genealogy"), can identify portions of your DNA that chronicle an unbroken chain of descent back to the Stone Age. All it takes is a swab from the inside of your cheek...
...When not killing, raping or pillaging, men have traditionally lain down with women to fertilize eggs. Today, in-vitro unions via withdrawals from well-stocked banks of iced sperm are breaking up that monopoly. The deciphering of dna and the specter of prêt-à-porter people from laboratories is also making the reproduction defense a 10-kg anchor on a supertanker...
...something that could go as far as the Supreme Court. But my sense is that it's a pretty commonsensical issue at the end of the day. If this were a pre-conviction trial, it would be obvious to everyone that the defendant has right to his own DNA testing and materials. So shouldn't it be common sense that we should extend that right to a post-conviction scenario? How can it not be helpful to correct the mistake of imprisoning an innocent person...