Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts

July 9 - DNA Puts Romanov Rumors to Rest

  Posted on July 9, 2022     


This is an update of my post published on July 9, 2011:




Forensic scientists use a variety of tests to figure out what happened in a crime and to identify bodies. Most forensic scientists work on current mysteries—such as solving murders that occurred today or yesterday—but sometimes they are called upon to solve a long-ago mystery.


In this case, the tests were able to squash a lot of rumors and speculation about what really happened to Russia's last czar and his family—a crime committed more than a century - 100 years! - ago!

During the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, in 1917, Czar Nicholas II (a Romanov) and his wife and five children were imprisoned, along with the family's medical doctor, the valet and lady-in-waiting, and the family's cook. They were supposed to be put on trial, but in July of 1918 they were hastily murdered, instead—all of them, servants and doctor included! They were buried in a common grave.

The imprisonment, murder, and burial site of the Romanovs stayed secret for a while. In 1926, Soviet Union officials admitted that the emperor and his family were dead, but there were rumors that some of them had survived. Once in a while somebody would come forward and claim to be a long-lost Romanov. Princess Anastasia was particular popular as a target for imposters.





In the late 1970s, the mass grave was found, but the discovery was kept secret. When the USSR government was dissolved in 1991, and the mass grave was officially revealed, the remains were dug up and analyzed. The DNA evidence confirmed (on this date in 1993) that the remains were the Romanovs. But there were two skeletons missing—Prince Alexei and one of his sisters seemed to be missing from the mass grave. There was a lot of uncertainty about which sister was missing—Anastasia or Maria?

See, there goes the mention of Anastasia again. Maybe one of those imposters wasn't really an imposter! Maybe, somehow, the princess had survived!

In 2007 partially-burned bones from the prince and one princess were unearthed near the mass grave site. Once again, DNA tests were run, and Romanov identities were confirmed. It seems that the entire family had, indeed, been murdered in 1917, but that the Bolsheviks wanted to split the burial in case the White armies found the grave—the grave would confuse them by having the wrong body count!


These are photos of Nicholas II and
his children in happier times.



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April 14 - Anniversary of the Completion of the Human Genome Project

Published on April 14, 2021

This is an update of my post published on April 14, 2010:



On this date in 2003, a press conference was held to announce the completion of the Human Genome Project, two years earlier than planned.


If you wrote out your genome, it would fill hundreds of
thick, densely printed books!

The goal of the project was to figure out the order of chemical base pairs that make up DNA and to identify and map all 19,000 to 22,000 human genes. Obviously, since nobody has exactly the same genome (other than identical twins), the project of mapping the genome involves sequencing variations of each gene.

Identical twins are (nearly) identical because
they share the same genome.

This project and other parallel projects, as well as work on sequencing the genome of other creatures and comparison of various genomes, has furthered and will continue to be applied to medicine, energy and environmental projects, forensics (such as identifying the victim of a crime), agriculture, ancestry and human evolution, migration, and other assorted topics.


DNA studies tell us a lot about human migration in general (above)
and ancestry for each of us (below) - although these studies are
relatively recent, and findings are approximations.

The more we learn, the more detailed and certain these
approximations are! Note in the various Ancestry-dot-Com
reports below, the percentages of ancestry from various
locations have increased or decreased, or have been
"refined,"as more and more people have been analyzed.



Learn more about Genetics

Here is a wonderful online mini-course on genetics. Each concept has an illustrated explanation, animation, “gallery” of photos or diagrams, some audio-visual clips, biographies of important scientists, a problem or two for kids to answer, and links to other websites. Excellent!

Zoom into your genome is a simple video with  images of cells, chromosomes, and DNA. Another educational video about DNA  can be found at Clarendon Learning.



Explore the Baby Genetics Calculator and learn more about genes and inheritance. I found the portion about eye color very interesting (scroll down to "Baby Eye Color Calculator") - especially because I happen to have hazel eyes, and that's a wildcard of sorts!

Hazel eyes are brown and gray and green and
maybe even a little bit blue.

Here are some more lessons for groups or classes.

This simple experiment uses ordinary household items to extract DNA from strawberries. You can actually see and feel DNA!



There are more DNA activities in this December, 2009, post.


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December 14 - Anniversary of creation of life in a test tube! (NOT!)

Posted on December 14, 2020

This is an update of my first December 14 post (from 2009!):



On this day in 1967, biochemists at Stanford University held a press conference to announce that they had successfully produced synthetic DNA of a phage called phi X174.


Nobel Laureate Arthur Kornberg and biochemist Mehran Goulian had been working with bacterial viruses (phages), which have shorter DNA strands than bacteria themselves. 


They experimented with enzymes that string together nucleotides to form DNA strands, and they also needed to find an enzyme that could cause the free ends of the strands of DNA to seal together into a circular form. (Once in a host, the virus's circular DNA turns into the familiar double-helix form.) Several different research teams found the needed enzyme, DNA ligase, and Kornberg and his team finally succeeded in creating the circular viral DNA.



The scientists warned reporters at the press conference that they should NOT say that scientists had “created life inside a test tube,” because, outside a larger system, viral DNA is not alive.

However, President Lyndon B. Johnson was giving a speech that same day, 
December 14, and as he looked at the carefully-worded Stanford University report, he summed up for his audience, "Some geniuses at Stanford University have created life in the test tube!"

According to the Arthur Kornberg Papers, Kornberg was dismayed the next day when all the newspaper stories about his work began with the President's statement.

If you read a lot about science, you will often find that reporters and the general public— even Presidents!—get new findings wrong. Use more than one source and reliable sources to get the real scoop.

Learn more about DNA using the interactive DNA Workshop Activity found near the bottom of the screen here.

Make a DNA model; instructions for a paper model can be found here, and a video explaining how to make a pipecleaner model can be found here.

Or try making
an edible model!


Translate your name into a DNA sequence according to the code found here.

Make a beaded DNA bracelet using instructions found here.

Lots of great stuff about DNA can be found here and here.





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