Awash in DNA News

Volume 16 | Issue 13 | 8 | Jun. 24, 2002 Previous | Next Awash in DNA News By Barry A. Palevitz Like most writers, I wield a mean scissors. I love to clip articles from assorted newspapers, magazines, Web sites, and research journals. Who knows, I tell myself, maybe the flotsam and jetsam will come in handy some day. Sometimes the clippings sort themselves into meaningful piles (I gave up file cabinets years ago) that turn into stories. Consider the following items: Craig Venter, the ex-guru of Celera Genomics, had better follow a straight and narrow path. Having sequenced his own DNA for the company's contribution to the Human Genome Project, he made himself the most identifiable person alive. Cops can easily trace Craig through a bit of spit, blood, or hair. In a Herculean effort, forensics experts--including some at Celera--used DNA evidence from reference samples and victims' remains, some tiny, to identify the dead of Sept. 11. The ongoing process has brought welcome closure to families and friends. Ray Krone recently walked away from an Arizona prison, the 100th death row inmate to be freed by the unequivocal testimony of DNA. A 1998 study used DNA evidence to pretty much settle centuries of innuendo about Thomas Jefferson's sex life. Odds are Jefferson was more than just a founding father of the republic. He also sired a child by his slave, Sally Hemmings.1 In early May, the Monticello Association of Jefferson Descendents decided to restrict membership to the line originating with Jefferson's 'legitimate' children, Martha and Maria, refusing membership to descendents of Hemmings. In a fascinating book published in 2000 (others like it recently appeared or are on the way), Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza marshaled genetic evidence to document how people spread over the globe from the time modern humans emerged out of Africa millennia ago.2 The results share striking similarity to the evolution of languages. More recent studies clarified the ancestry of Middle Eastern peoples--it seems Jews and Palestinians share more than land. Most present day American bison actually contain cattle genes introduced by crossbreeding. The news is awash in DNA--and the clip pile rises--which raises some interesting questions. If people think DNA can and should exonerate the innocent, if they gratefully accept its value in bringing closure to personal tragedy, if they even use it to decide who pays child support, why do so many still deny it has anything to say about the relationship between our species and every other living entity on the planet? Why is evolution still so controversial now that DNA evidence has profoundly fleshed out the biotic family tree? The paleontology of our species is buried in our genes. So why do polls consistently reveal deep distrust of the well-established scientific fact that our closest living relatives are chimps and bonobos? There's hope: A recent report reveals that a bare majority of Americans now accept the premise that we evolved from earlier species.3 It's progress, but at a painfully slow pace. References 1. E.A. Foster et al., "Jefferson fathered slave's last child," Nature, 396:27-8, 1998. 2. L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples, and Languages, New York: North Point Press, 2000. 3. National Science Board, "Science and Engineering Indicators, 2002," www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/start.htm. Barry A. Palevitz (palevitz@dogwood.botany.uga.edu) is a contributing editor and a professor of plant biology at the University of Georgia. ©2002, The Scientist Inc. Comment E-mail article

Awash in DNA News

Awash in DNA News

By Barry A. Palevitz

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