DNA test

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Niagara Falls Victim's Body Was Found 140 Miles Away

Vincent Stack's remains likely drifted for 16 months

(Newser) - Remains found on the shores of Lake Ontario 32 years ago have now been identified as those of a New York man who's believed to have gone over Niagara Falls. CBS News reports the "badly decomposed and mostly skeletal" remains were found some 140 miles from the falls...

DNA Tests Reveal Truth About a Universal Taboo
DNA Tests
Reveal Ugly Truth
About Incest
longform

DNA Tests Reveal Ugly Truth About Incest

'Atlantic' reports that children resulting from the universal taboo are far more common than thought

(Newser) - Not too long ago, researchers estimated the frequency of incest at one in a million. The age of easy DNA testing, however, has revealed a troubling truth: It's far more common than thought, writes Sarah Zhang in the Atlantic . One researcher who studied the UK Biobank suggested that 1...

Pet DNA Firm Identifies Humans as Dogs

It told one reporter she was mostly Alaskan malamute

(Newser) - A swab sample sent to dog DNA testing company DNA My Dog came back as 40% Alaskan malamute, 35% shar-pei, and 25% labrador—but the sample was a cheek swab from Christina Hager, a 100% human reporter at WBZ News . She also sent samples to two other dog DNA companies:...

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...

Infamous Lindbergh Baby Case Takes a Dark Turn

Skeptics doubt guilt of the man convicted, while an author suggests Lindbergh himself is a suspect

(Newser) - It was, at the time, the "crime of the century"—the 1932 kidnapping and murder of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr., son of the famed pilot. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was eventually executed for the 1932 crime, but as the New York Times reports, many continue to believe he was...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

DNA Tests Often Give Up Family Secrets. Not Like This One

Jaclyn Peiser reveals what the children born to Anne Bryntwick discovered

(Newser) - Mike Mitchell, who died in 1991, raised eight children with his wife. One of them, David, was born in Montreal on March 15, 1954. More than 60 years later, David learned a girl born in the same city on the very same day was also Mike Mitchell's child. In...

To Arrest a Murder Suspect, All Detectives Wore Levi's
To Arrest a
Murder Suspect,
All Detectives
Wore Levi's
in case you missed it

To Arrest a Murder Suspect, All Detectives Wore Levi's

1981 murder victim had worked for Levi Strauss

(Newser) - Michael Glazebrook, accused of killing his neighbor in Monterey County, Calif., in 1981, escaped his 1983 murder trial scot-free when the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict and the district attorney chose to forgo a retrial. Forty years later, a new trial will finally come. Glazebrook was arrested for...

Woman Sues Fertility Doc for 'Medical Rape'

Says he used his own sperm, without permission, to impregnate her

(Newser) - Another heartbreaking story of an allegedly unethical fertility doctor: In New Jersey, Bianca Voss, 75, learned last year that her daughter Roberta's father was, allegedly, the very OB-GYN who was supposed to have artificially inseminated her using sperm from an anonymous donor almost four decades ago. The bombshell came...

They Kept a Vow Not to Talk for 51 Years. Then They Married

Biological daughter who was put up for adoption played a role

(Newser) - It's not often a person can say they introduced their parents, but that's sort of true for Arkansas' Laura Mabry. Mabry, who was adopted as an infant in 1968, took a DNA test in 2019 that connected her with her birth mother, Donna Horn. During text and email...

DNA Test Led to Her Birth Father, and a Grim Accusation

William Bradford Bishop, Jr. allegedly murdered his wife, mother, and three children

(Newser) - Of all the secrets revealed by at-home DNA tests, Kathy Gillcrist's has to be one of the more extreme. The 63-year-old was adopted and quickly connected with her first known family member after taking a 23andMe DNA test in 2017: a third cousin named Susan Gillmor. As luck would...

Friends of Almost a Decade Find Out They're Sisters
BFFs Make Startling Discovery
After Taking DNA Tests
in case you missed it

BFFs Make Startling Discovery After Taking DNA Tests

Cassandra Madison and Julia Tinetti of Connecticut find out they're actually sisters

(Newser) - There are scatterings of stories about long-lost siblings meeting after completing DNA testing kits. But one such story is especially amazing because, as the Washington Post reports, the two women who discovered they were sisters were already great friends. Cassandra Madison and Julia Tinetti developed a close relationship while working...

He Was a Fertility Miracle Worker, but He Had a Big Secret

HBO delves into the case of Quincy Fortier in 'Baby God'

(Newser) - Quincy Fortier was never charged with any crimes and never lost his medical license, but hushed-up accusations long swirled around him—and since his death in 2006, it has become increasingly clear that the onetime "Doctor of the Year" in Nevada is actually one of several OB-GYNs accused of...

Grandson of Harding and His Lover Wants Body Exhumed

James Blaesing makes his case in Ohio

(Newser) - The grandson of US President Warren G. Harding and his lover, Nan Britton, went to court in an effort to get the Republican's remains exhumed from the presidential memorial where they have lain since 1927, the AP reports. James Blaesing told an Ohio court that he is seeking Harding’...

DNA Slavery Study Yields Suprises
DNA Slavery Study
Yields Surprises
NEW STUDY

DNA Slavery Study Yields Surprises

More enslaved people came to the US from Nigeria than previously thought, researchers say

(Newser) - Using historical records has been the most traditional way to shed light on the dark stain of slavery in the United States. Now, per new research that the Scientist calls "the largest DNA study to examine African ancestry in the Americas," gene analysis is helping put more pieces...

Man Thinks He's the Boy Who's Been Missing for 25 Years
Man Thinks He's the Boy Who's 
Been Missing for 25 Years
in case you missed it

Man Thinks He's the Boy Who's Been Missing for 25 Years

Mother hasn't said whether she'll take a DNA test

(Newser) - Twenty-five years ago this week, a woman told police her 4-year-old son had disappeared while they were shopping at a mall in a Detroit suburb. The child was never found. Now, WDIV reports, a man who says he believes he's that boy has given a DNA sample to police...

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