Author: Terri Sundquist

Telepathy and Mind Control: From Science Fiction Movies to Reality?

Posted on by Terri Sundquist

BrainInterfaceThere is something very futuristic, and perhaps scary, about the idea of nonverbally transferring one person’s thoughts to another person, especially for the purpose of controlling or influencing a person’s actions and behaviors. Maybe that’s why telepathy and mind control are favorite topics of many science fiction movies. However, there are times when direct, nonverbal transfer of thoughts would be advantageous, for example when communicating complex concepts or feelings that are difficult to convey. Direct transfer also would circumvent the need to translate information from one language to another. For these reasons, scientists are currently developing technologies to allow such thought transfers. A recent PLOS ONE article describes a simple brain-to-brain interface in humans and shows how this interface can be used to capture a thought generated by one person and communicate that information directly to the brain of a second person and elicit a physical response (1).

Continue reading “Telepathy and Mind Control: From Science Fiction Movies to Reality?”

DNA Reveals the Identity of Jack the Ripper?

Posted on by Terri Sundquist

A wanted poster for Jack the Ripper, who was also known as Leather Apron. Image courtesy of the British Museum
A wanted poster for Jack the Ripper, who was also known as Leather Apron.
Image courtesy of the British Museum

In the late 1800s, Victorian England was mesmerized and horrified by a series of brutal killings in the crowded and impoverished Whitechapel district. The serial killer, who became known as “Jack the Ripper”, had murdered and mutilated at least five women, many of whom worked as prostitutes in the slums around London. None of these murders were ever solved, and Jack the Ripper was never identified, although investigators interviewed more than 2,000 people and named more than 100 suspects. Now, 126 years after the murders, a British author, who coincidentally has just published a book on the subject, is claiming that DNA analysis has revealed the identity of the notorious killer. DNA is often thought to be the “gold standard” of human identification techniques, so why is there so much skepticism surrounding this identification?
Continue reading “DNA Reveals the Identity of Jack the Ripper?”

How a Magazine Ad Helped Convict a Rapist

Posted on by Terri Sundquist
Trial

In May of 1986, a woman in Orange County, Florida, was surprised by a man who entered her apartment and raped her at knifepoint. Despite the fact that she got a glimpse of his face, the chances of identifying and convicting her rapist were slim. Although law enforcement officers did their best to identify the perpetrator, their investigative techniques in the case were limited compared to our current set of forensic tools. That changed when Jeffrey Ashton, an assistant attorney for the state of Florida, saw an advertisement for DNA-based paternity testing in a magazine and began to wonder if DNA testing could also be used to identify the man responsible for the attack.

Continue reading “How a Magazine Ad Helped Convict a Rapist”

Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Fight Malaria

Posted on by Terri Sundquist
Image courtesy of James Gathany and the CDC
Image courtesy of James Gathany and the CDC

Mosquitos: They are the scourge of summer activities—the annoying buzzing noise as they fly around our ears and the pain, itching and swelling associated with their bites. Worst of all, certain species of mosquitoes can transmit diseases such as West Nile virus, Dengue fever and malaria. Defense mechanisms such as mosquito repellent, covering my head with netting and wearing heavy clothing are often insufficient against the swarm of hungry insects. It’s enough to make me want to stay indoors.

Those people who cannot escape these pests have a higher risk of being bitten and contracting a disease such as malaria, which killed an estimated 627,000 people in 2012, mostly in Africa and southeast Asia (1). A common step in malaria reduction programs in high-risk areas is reducing the number of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, which act as the host for malaria-causing parasites. This often involves massive amounts of insecticides, including limited amounts of the much maligned but very effective insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Due to these programs, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 2000 and 2012, malaria mortality rates decreased by 42% worldwide, including a 48% decrease in children under 5 years of age. Clearly these programs are saving lives, but wouldn’t it be nice to achieve the same thing with fewer pesticides?

Continue reading “Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Fight Malaria”

DNA Gives Hope to Human Trafficking Victims

Posted on by Terri Sundquist
Neglected child

The statistics are grim. In 2013, human rights agencies estimate that as many as 29.8 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking (1), forced into debt bondage or marriage or sold as soldiers or sex workers. Many of these victims are children. Very few of them are ever identified (less than 0.2% of victims in 2013).

Most of us like to think that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in our modern world, but the recent abduction of 276 school girls in Nigeria is just more proof that it does. Human trafficking is big business, and a single Nigerian woman can command as much as $78,000 on the black market. Meanwhile, others are being bought and sold for less money than some of us spend on food in a day. Fortunately, human rights and law enforcement agencies are developing tools to combat this problem. In addition to conventional investigation methods such as surveillance, sting operations and interviews with victims and alleged perpetrators, these agencies are recruiting scientists to join this fight by implementing cutting-edge DNA-based human identification methods.

Continue reading “DNA Gives Hope to Human Trafficking Victims”

How to Isolate RNA like a Pro

Posted on by Terri Sundquist

Ribbon diagram of RNA’s biggest threat: a ribonuclease
Ribbon diagram of RNA’s biggest threat: a ribonuclease

Back in graduate school, I purified a lot of RNA, and after a while, I became fairly successful at it. My yields were good, and the RNA was intact. However, many of my early attempts at RNA isolation yielded degraded RNA that did not work well in many downstream applications. In my case, successfully isolating high-quality RNA required practice. During my trials and tribulations, I learned a lot of tricks and tips about how to obtain high-quality RNA. Here I share some of these tricks to help you speed through that “practice makes perfect” phase so that you can isolate RNA like a pro.

Continue reading “How to Isolate RNA like a Pro”

Dealing with PCR Inhibitors

Posted on by Terri Sundquist
Inhibition

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has revolutionized modern biology as a quick and easy way to generate amazing amounts of genomic data. However, when PCR doesn’t work, it can be frustrating. At these times, PCR and reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) inhibitors seem to be everywhere: They lie dormant in your starting material and can co-purify with the template of interest, and they can be introduced during sample handling or reaction setup. The effects of these inhibitors can range from partial inhibition and underestimation of the target nucleic acid amount to complete amplification failure. What is a scientist to do?

Continue reading “Dealing with PCR Inhibitors”

Ancient Origins of a Human Gene Associated with Diabetes

Posted on by Terri Sundquist

Ancient peopleRecently, researchers of the SIGMA Type 2 Diabetes Consortium published a paper in Nature identifying a new locus associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes (1). Considering the increasing prevalence of this metabolic disease in today’s sugar-filled world, any discovery that helps us understand diabetes is exciting news. However, the most interesting discovery published in this paper might not be this new gene variant but rather the origin of this variant in modern human populations: Neandertals.

Continue reading “Ancient Origins of a Human Gene Associated with Diabetes”

Update: Is It the Blood of Louis XVI?

Posted on by Terri Sundquist
Statue of King Henry IV at Pont Neuf in Paris
Statue of King Henry IV at Pont Neuf in Paris

In an earlier blog entry, I wrote about the ill-fated Louis XVI, the French king who was famously beheaded along with his wife, Marie-Antoinette, during the French Revolution in 1793. Witnesses to the execution dipped handkerchiefs in the king’s blood and kept them as souvenirs of the common people’s rebellion. In 2010, scientists published the presumptive DNA profile of the king, obtained from one of these bloody handkerchiefs (1). Shortly after this profile was published, doubters surfaced, arguing that scientists could not say with certainty that the blood was that of Louis XVI. Clearly, more work was needed to identify the source of the blood. Recently, additional work was published (2,3). The most recent data (3) were presented at the 2013 International Symposium on Human Identification; these newest data cast doubt on the identification of the remains of not one king, but two.

Continue reading “Update: Is It the Blood of Louis XVI?”

Preventing the Heartache of Cell Line Misidentification

Posted on by Terri Sundquist
Golden mask

It’s a scientist’s nightmare: Spending time and resources to investigate a biological phenomenon only to learn later that your cells are not what you think they are—their true identities hidden. As a result, all of the data that you’ve generated with those cells, published and unpublished, are cast into doubt. You thought that you knew your cells, that you could trust them, but your trust was misplaced. At some point, perhaps even before the traitorous cell line entered your laboratory, the cells were mislabeled, misidentified or contaminated with another cell line. It didn’t have to be this way. There are easy steps you can take to prevent the headache and heartache of cell line misidentification and contamination.

Continue reading “Preventing the Heartache of Cell Line Misidentification”