DNA

Stories 1 - 20 |  Next >>

Report: 'Star' DNA Scientist Manipulated Evidence

Colorado probe into work of Yvonne 'Missy' Woods says her manipulation affected at least 652 cases

(Newser) - An esteemed analyst known as "Colorado's star DNA scientist" purposely manipulated evidence for years, involving hundreds (if not more) of the cases she worked on and putting the spotlight on her entire career, according to an investigation. According to a report released Friday by the Colorado Bureau of...

23andMe Has Gone From Hot to Not. Can Its CEO Save It?

Stocks are trading below $1, but Anne Wojcicki sees promise in drug development

(Newser) - Genetic testing company 23andMe's stock is trading at around 75 cents as of this writing, a precipitous fall for a company that the Wall Street Journal dubs "one of the hottest startups in the world ... five years ago." Its valuation has fallen 98% from its former $6...

They Were Stabbed and Left to Die. 50 Years Later, a Suspect

Indianapolis cops say Thomas Edward Williams, attacked 2 sisters, friend in 1975; he has since died

(Newser) - A nearly 50-year-old cold case surrounding three young girls stabbed and left to die in an Indiana cornfield has finally reached a conclusion, although it's one that will end without justice. In a Thursday presser , the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department announced that DNA evidence was able to help identify...

Here, Doggy DNA Is Key to a 'Poo Crackdown'

Bolzano province in Italy setting up database to nail pooches pooping in public, with a fine for owners

(Newser) - An Italian province is sick of this crap, and it's not going to take it anymore. A database is being set up in Bolzano, in the northern part of the country, to register DNA info from the region's 40,000 or so dogs, so that when they poop...

Moon Lander—and Its Human Remains—to Burn
Doomed Lunar
Lander Meets
Its End
UPDATED

Doomed Lunar Lander Meets Its End

Astrobotic's Peregrine burns up reentering Earth's atmosphere, along with human remains

(Newser) - The doomed Peregrine moon lander burned up in Earth's atmosphere over a remote stretch of the South Pacific on Thursday, as planned after the spacecraft suffered a malfunction that left it unable to reach the moon. "We commend @Astrobotic for their perseverance," NASA said in a statement...

Remains of Victim at World Trade Center Are Identified

John Niven's family say officials' effort reflects 'Never Forget'

(Newser) - The remains of a Long Island man killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 have been identified more than two decades after the 2001 attacks, the New York City medical examiner's office announced Thursday. John Ballantine Niven was a 44-year-old executive at Aon Risk Services, an insurance firm...

Ancient DNA Provides 'Quantum Leap' in Understanding of MS

Herders who migrated to Europe 5K years ago brought increased risk of disease, researchers say

(Newser) - Around 5,000 years ago, a people called the Yamnaya swept into northwestern Europe on horseback, bringing their wagons, cattle, and sheep—along with genes that researchers believe are responsible for higher rates of multiple sclerosis in the region today. In a study published in the journal Nature , researchers say...

As Glacier Ice Melted, Another Grisly Find

Cops say body found near Matterhorn is German mountaineer who went missing 37 years ago

(Newser) - DNA tests have confirmed that the body recently found on a glacier southeast of the famed Matterhorn peak is that of a German mountaineer who disappeared 37 years ago, police in southwestern Switzerland said Thursday. Increasing glacier melt, which many scientists blame on global warming, has spurred a recent increase...

Court Filing Reveals DNA Evidence Against Kohberger

DNA on knife sheath a 'statistical match' to suspect

(Newser) - DNA on a knife sheath found at the home where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death last fall is a "statistical match" to that collected from suspect Bryan Kohberger, prosecutors disclosed in a court filing. In the June 16 filing, prosecutors said the STR profile, a...

Killer Receives Life Sentence in 1999 Deaths of Teenage Girls

DNA testing tied Coley McCraney to the slayings

(Newser) - An Alabama judge sentenced a man to life imprisonment without possibility of parole on Thursday, bringing a close to the case of the slayings of two teenage girls in 1999. Coley McCraney was convicted of capital murder in April by a jury that decided the sentence, which the judge was...

Amateur Sleuth Sues FBI Over DB Cooper's Clip-On Tie

Eric Ulis wants to find DNA, then enter it in ancestry databases

(Newser) - Eric Ulis said last fall that he thinks he knows the identity of DB Cooper, as the man who jumped out of a plane with $200,000 after a 1971 skyjacking is known, but he needs the FBI's cooperation to prove it. Ulis sued the FBI on Wednesday in...

Sweet Potato Leads to Arrest in Massachusetts Cold Case

Officials were able to match DNA from the root vegetable left at the scene with suspect

(Newser) - After Todd Lampley was shot in the bedroom of a Massachusetts home on February 27, 2011, police recovered evidence outside the bedroom window: shell casings, a cellphone, and a sweet potato. Twelve years later, there's finally an arrest in the case, and authorities say DNA left on that sweet...

A 52-Year-Old Piece of Evidence Leads to Killer

Vermont police say Rita Curran was killed by her upstairs neighbor

(Newser) - A cigarette butt was found next to 24-year-old Rita Curran's body in 1971. Some 52 years later, it would unmask her killer. The Washington Post reports that officials in Burlington, Vermont, on Tuesday said genetic genealogy has identified the late William DeRoos as the killer. He and his then-wife...

Study 'Opens Door Into a Past That Has Basically Been Lost'

Oldest DNA tells us what life once occupied Greenland

(Newser) - Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even...

One of US' Oldest Kidnapping Cases Has a Surprise Ending

Melissa Highsmith, abducted as a baby in 1971, meets parents, siblings for first time

(Newser) - Last month, Jeff Highsmith vowed to not give up looking for his sister, Melissa Highsmith, who was kidnapped as a baby in Fort Worth, Texas, more than 50 years ago. "I have to try," he said of his recently ramped-up efforts to find his older sibling, spurred by...

Spit on Sidewalk Leads Cops to Alleged Killer
Double Killer's Mistake:
He Spit on a Sidewalk
UPDATED

Double Killer's Mistake: He Spit on a Sidewalk

Geovanni Borjas pleads no contest to raping, killing Michelle Lozano and Bree'Anna Guzman

(Newser) - Update: Walking along a California street, Geovanni Borjas did the seemingly innocuous: He spit on a sidewalk. But it wasn't innocuous at all for the killer, whose spit matched DNA on two murder victims. On Monday, the 38-year-old pleaded no contest to the first-degree murders and forcible rapes of...

Texas Schools Sending Home 'Incredibly Triggering' DNA Kits

The kits, intended to help locate a missing child, have taken on a macabre meaning after Uvalde

(Newser) - Texas public schools are sending students home with DNA kits meant to help identify them in an emergency—a move parents say is a horrifying reminder of inaction on gun violence in the wake of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Parents aren't required to use the...

Woman Sues After Cops Use Rape Kit DNA to Arrest Her

She reported sexual assault in 2016, was arrested in theft case in 2021

(Newser) - A woman whose own rape kit was used against her by police now wants some payback. The woman identified only as Jane Doe has sued the city of San Francisco for unspecified damages over the case that made national headlines, reports BuzzFeed . After the woman reported a sexual assault to...

Unknown Soldier No More: WWI Gravestone Gets a Name
Unknown Soldier Is
Unknown No More

Unknown Soldier Is Unknown No More

British soldier who died in WWI is identified via DNA as 2nd Lt. Osmund Bartle Wordsworth

(Newser) - For more than a century, the British soldier lay in an anonymous grave, one of so many unidentified victims buried beneath the killing fields of World War I. But now, his headstone finally bears a name: 2nd Lt. Osmund Bartle Wordsworth—a great-great-nephew of English poet William Wordsworth—who was...

Quest to Free Inmate With DNA Test Made Things Worse

New evidence implicates him in another murder he'd been acquitted of 25 years ago

(Newser) - DNA evidence has increasingly been used to help free persons wrongly convicted of crimes they didn't commit. In a three-decade-old case out of Florida, however, authorities say it did just the opposite and proved that a man acquitted of murder was actually the killer all along. Per the New ...

Stories 1 - 20 |  Next >>