• Collecting DNA from the air

    From RS Wood@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 15 13:37:31 2021
    From the «oh so now you want to wear your mask?!» department:
    Feed: Slashdot
    Title: Scientists Show You Can Collect DNA From the Air
    Author: BeauHD
    Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2021 22:02:00 -0400
    Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rsYKgH-XAUY/scientists-show-you-can-collect-dna-from-the-air

    Researchers at the Queen Mary University of London have shown that you can collect "environmental DNA" (eDNA) from the air. Engadget reports: The team used
    a peristaltic pump combined with pressure filters to grab samples of naked mole rat DNA for five to 20 minutes, and then used standard kits to find and sequence
    genes in the resulting samples. This method not only pinpointed the mole rats' DNA (both in their housing and in the room at large), but caught some human DNA at the same time. Lead author Dr. Elizabeth Claire said the work was originally meant to help conservationists and ecologists study biological environments. With enough development, though, it could be used for considerably more. Forensics units could pluck DNA from the air to determine if a suspect had been present at the scene of a crime. It might also be useful in medicine -- virologists and epidemiologists could understand how airborne viruses (like the one behind COVID-19) spread.

    [image 2][2][image 4][4]

    Read more of this story[5] at Slashdot.
    [image 6]

    Links:
    [1]: http://twitter.com/home?status=Scientists+Show+You+Can+Collect+DNA+From+the+Air%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F3sVbjf4 (link)
    [2]: https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png (image)
    [3]: http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F21%2F04%2F05%2F216248%2Fscientists-show-you-can-collect-dna-from-the-air%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook (link)
    [4]: https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png (image)
    [5]: https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/04/05/216248/scientists-show-you-can-collect-dna-from-the-air?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed (link)
    [6]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/rsYKgH-XAUY (image)



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  • From danny burstein@21:1/5 to All on Fri Apr 16 03:55:47 2021
    [snip]

    "The team used
    a peristaltic pump combined with pressure filters to grab samples
    of naked mole
    rat DNA for five to 20 minutes"

    You had me at "naked mole rat".


    --
    _____________________________________________________
    Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
    dannyb@panix.com
    [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to dannyb@panix.com on Fri Apr 16 11:35:07 2021
    On Fri, 16 Apr 2021 03:55:47 +0000 (UTC), danny burstein
    <dannyb@panix.com> wrote:

    You had me at "naked mole rat".

    "Naked mole-rats, as their name suggests, are pink, nearly hairless subterranean rodents. "

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Retrograde@21:1/5 to danny burstein on Fri Apr 16 13:20:02 2021
    On Fri, 16 Apr 2021 03:55:47 +0000 (UTC)
    danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote:

    [snip]

    "The team used
    a peristaltic pump combined with pressure filters to grab samples
    of naked mole
    rat DNA for five to 20 minutes"

    You had me at "naked mole rat".

    Seriously. Of all the animals to study, why that one? How about city
    rats, of which there are billions and whose DNA might be interesting.

    The obvious next step is to create a device that can identify you by
    your DNA capture, which they get via a sample of your exhalation. When
    that happens, the days when we worried about our smartphones tracking
    us (or cookies, for F's sake) will seem quaint by comparison.

    Hello autocratic dystopia!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Mike Spencer@21:1/5 to Retrograde on Tue Apr 20 01:11:05 2021
    Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> writes:

    On Fri, 16 Apr 2021 03:55:47 +0000 (UTC)
    danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> wrote:

    [snip]

    "The team used a peristaltic pump combined with pressure filters to
    grab samples of naked mole rat DNA for five to 20 minutes"

    You had me at "naked mole rat".

    Seriously. Of all the animals to study, why that one? How about city
    rats, of which there are billions and whose DNA might be interesting.

    Signal to noise ratio? NMRs live in tunnels, closed culture, minimal
    air exchange/flow. Ther must be a huge amount of crap in the air
    where urban rats live. And as NMRs live some 30 years and are more or
    less immune to cancer, their DNA might be very interesting.

    The obvious next step is to create a device that can identify you by
    your DNA capture, which they get via a sample of your exhalation. When
    that happens, the days when we worried about our smartphones tracking
    us (or cookies, for F's sake) will seem quaint by comparison.

    Hello autocratic dystopia!

    Remember audio ads addressing passers-by by name in public places in
    "Minority Report"? (Implied retinal, not DNA, ID though)

    --
    Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

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  • From Retrograde@21:1/5 to Mike Spencer on Thu Apr 22 00:57:36 2021
    On 2021-04-20, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

    where urban rats live. And as NMRs live some 30 years and are more or
    less immune to cancer, their DNA might be very interesting.

    I'd forgotten about their invulnerability to cancer. That's an interesting point, and makes them genetically interesting indeed.

    Hello autocratic dystopia!

    Remember audio ads addressing passers-by by name in public places in "Minority Report"? (Implied retinal, not DNA, ID though)

    Hell, search for any single thing on Amazon these days and those ads will follow you around the web for weeks. We're part way there already, sadly.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere on Wed Apr 21 21:42:21 2021
    On 20 Apr 2021 01:11:05 -0300, Mike Spencer
    <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

    Implied retinal, not DNA, ID though

    Using facial recognition technique is not uncommon these days.
    Needless to say, a typical person carries a cellphone, so "they" can
    find out where a person is.

    I would not be surprised if FBI used facial recognition software to
    round up a number of Capital rioters.

    I'd venture to say, most all taxpaying persons could be found/tracked
    with the means Intel has available today. From a software program
    I've seen, it sucks up quite a bit of data from different sources; so
    they could get a snapshot of a person being examined.

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to fungus@amongus.com.invalid on Wed Apr 21 21:23:11 2021
    On Thu, 22 Apr 2021 00:57:36 -0000 (UTC), Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

    search for any single thing on Amazon these days and those ads will
    follow you around the web for weeks

    Via dumping cookies and changing dynamic IP address, they can't
    follow. I'm using a Verizon data plan, and Verizon flips IP addresses
    several times a day. Even Google "sees" me in different cities

    Many ISPs use persistent IP addresses for their customers, so not much
    a person can do unless a VPN is used,

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