NightBlogger

Times Online
She robs, she injects herself with heroin, she seems to kill with almost professional precision – and, as far as German detectives are concerned, she has no identity. The hunt for the woman known as the Phantom of Heilbronn has been stepped up after the discovery of new traces of her DNA in a blood-stained white Ford Escort. “The noose is tightening,” Erwin Hetger, the chief of police in Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany, said. For 15 years a mysterious woman has been leaving traces of her DNA at crime scenes across Europe, suggesting her involvement in at least six murders and scores of break-ins. Rarely are there witnesses. Instead, police in the countries where she has been roaming – Germany, France and Austria – have had to piece together a profile from saliva left on biscuits nibbled at the site of a murder, a discarded cigarette packet and a spot of blood. She may flit across borders like a ghost but she has been leaving a trail behind her. A human being loses on average four hairs in an hour and sheds a million dead cells in 40 minutes: that forensic scence harvest is all the police have to go on. More
Also See: Junkie’s needle may lead to woman serial killer they call the Phantom
Germany hunts phantom killer

WEST Australian Police have asked the state government to give them the power to take a DNA sample from anyone who is arrested, even for minor offences such as trespass. Police can now take samples only from people charged with or suspected of committing a serious offence that carries a minimum jail sentence of 12 months. The West Australian newspaper said it was understood police had made the request for greater powers in their recent submission to the State Government’s statutory review of the Criminal Investigation (Identifying People) Act 2002, which regulates the DNA database, the collection of samples and the time and conditions under which profiles are kept. Police Minister John Kobelke has backed the move, saying it would help make police even more effective. More

DNA paternity tests
After two decades, Sean Reid of Surrey, British Columbia, discovered that he had a son. Fred Turley of Des Plaines, Ill., learned he didn’t have a daughter. And Wendy Lieb of Lewis Center, Ohio, made certain she wasn’t going to be a grandmother quite yet. In all three situations, crucial genetic information altered the lives of the people involved. And in each case, it came not from a doctor or other medical source, but from a $29.99 kit on a drugstore shelf. Reid, Turley and Lieb are among more than 800 customers who responded to the first wave of marketing for do-it-yourself DNA paternity tests sold as Identigene by Sorenson Genomics of Salt Lake City. More

Photo Andrew Eick

Passing the House of Representatives on a voice vote, S. 1858 has been sent to President Bush for signature. The Newborn Genetic Screening bill was passed by the Senate last December. The bill violates the U.S. Constitution and the Nuremberg Code, writes Twila Brase, president of the Citizen’s Council on Health Care (CCHC). “The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research,” she states.
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Pic by woodleywonderworks

“Gene insertion was done using a gene gun (particle bombardment). Kirk, who has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, understood this to be ‘a kind of barbaric and messy method of genetic engineering, where you use a gun-like apparatus to bombard the plant tissue with genes that are wrapped around tiny gold particles.’ He knew that particle bombardment can cause unpredictable changes and mutations in the DNA, which might result in new types of proteins. The scientist dismissed these newly created proteins in the cotton plant as unimportant background noise….”
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