About the Pre-Natal Paternity Test

Pre-natal paternity testing is performed before the birth of the child. The test is typically performed by analysing either a CVS sample or by using amniotic fluid. The patient would be required to independently arrange for collection of either CVS samples or amniocentesis. Once the hospital sends these samples to us we can proceed with the pre-natal paternity test.

Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS)

Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS) is usually performed at a very early stage of pregnancy, generally around the 11th to 13th week of pregnancy. During the CVS procedure, a catheter is inserted through the cervix and a small sample is taken from the outside of the gestational sack by gentle suction. This sampling procedure allows the obstetrician to obtain a small amount of fetal chorionic villi (trophoblastic tissue), which is used for the pre-natal paternity test. Pre-natal paternity tests conducted using CVS samples are just as accurate as tests, which are performed after the child is born.

What should I expect after the CVS?

For the first couple of days you may experience some abdominal discomfort, period-like pain or a little bleeding. These are relatively common and in the vast majority of cases the pregnancy continues without any problems. You may find it helpful to take simple painkillers like paracetamol. If there is a lot of pain or bleeding or if you develop a temperature please seek medical advice.

Who performs the procedure?
The customer will have to contact their doctor or local medical centre for their nearest centre in which this type of DNA sample collection can be arranged. DNA Solutions does not perform DNA extraction from the unborn child - we can certainly analyse this at the same costs as a paternity test.

Amniocentesis
Amniocentesis is generally performed at later stages of pregnancy. During an amniocentesis procedure, a small amount of amniotic fluid (10ml) is withdrawn transabdominally by your obstetrician. Amniotic fluid is also an excellent sample for paternity testing; paternity tests performed using amniotic fluid, are just as accurate as tests conducted after the child is born.

Whether you choose chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis, results are usually available 10 to 15 working days after specimen collection.

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DNA 'tattoos' link adult, daughter stem cells in planarians

Taken from: eurekalert.org /

Unlike some parents, adult stem cells don't seem to mind when their daughters get a tattoo. In fact, they're willing to pass them along.

Using the molecular equivalent of a tattoo on DNA that adult stem cells (ASC) pass to their "daughter" cells in combination with gene expression profiles, University of Utah researchers have identified two early steps in adult stem cell differentiation—the process that determines whether cells will form muscle, neurons, skin, etc., in people and animals.

The U of U researchers, led by Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and anatomy, identified 259 genes that help defined the earliest steps in the differentiation of adult stem cells in planarians—tiny flatworms that have the uncanny ability to regenerate cells and may have much to teach about human stem cell biology.

The findings, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of Cell Stem Cell establish planarians as an excellent model for studying adult stem cells in a live animal, rather than a laboratory culture dish.

"This allows us to study an entire stem cell population in its own environment," said Sánchez Alvarado, also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the study's senior author. "It's likely that what we learned here can be applied to our own stem cell biology."

Planarians share similar biology with humans in many ways. They also, for reasons unknown, regenerate cells unlike any other animal—an entirely new worm can form from just a fragment of another worm. Planarians constantly regenerate new cells to replace those that die naturally or from injury.

The process begins when adult stem cells divide into two new cells (daughter cells): one becomes like its mother (a stem cell), while the other will move on to give rise to the cells that will serve specific functions in planarian life. For example, some cells may form part of the worm's musculature, while others will form part of the brain.

Because daughters and mother cells are indistinguishable from each other in appearance, the researchers devised methods to detect specific differences in gene expression in the BrdU-labeled cells. The researchers identified 259 genes associated with the stem cells and their daughters. When the U team disabled some of these genes, they found that in some cases no defects were observed, while in others deficiencies were detected in the way the cells were patterned in regenerating planarians.

Sánchez Alvarado and two colleagues then marked adult stem cells in the worms by injecting BrdU, a synthetic nucleotide that binds with DNA and leaves an unmistakable mark on it, much like a tattoo. (Nucleotides are the structural units of DNA and RNA.) When the adult stem cells divided into daughter cells as part of the worms' normal cell regeneration, the BrdU was passed to the daughter cells in their DNA, allowing the researchers to track these cells. By detecting which genes were expressed in which BrdU-labeled cells, the collection of identified genes allowed the researchers to work out for the first time the lineage of stem cells in planarians.

Scientists want a recreate the Big Bang with a new Machine

Some switzerland scientists tonight, make a recreation of the great explosion in the space, the Big Bang, which comes the life to the universe... Here is the article:

-- Scientists were rejoicing tonight after a flawless start to the £5 billion Big Bang experiment, a bold attempt to re-enact the first moments of the universe.

A beam of protons – tiny building blocks of matter – flying just under the speed of light was sent spinning round a 27 kilometre long tunnel buried 100 metres underground near Geneva.

Another beam was then fired in the opposite direction. Later the particles will be smashed into each other at energies up to seven times higher than any achieved before.

The aim is to recreate conditions as tightly squeezed and hot as they were less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe around 14 billion years ago.

Temperatures inside that primordial fireball almost at the beginning of time reached a million billion degrees C.

All this will take place within the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex scientific instrument ever built.

British scientists were at the forefront of the design and construction of the particle accelerator, which covers an area straddling the French and Swiss borders the size of the London Underground Circle Line.

Today they celebrated news from the LHC control centre at CERN, the European nuclear research organisation in Geneva, that a beam of protons had successfully been fired all the way round the tunnel ring.

"First beam" was announced at 9.28am, UK time.

LHC project leader Dr Lyn Evans – a Welsh scientist from Aberdare – said: "It’s a fantastic moment. We can now look forward to a new era of understanding about the origins and evolution of the universe."

In the coming weeks scientists will stage particle collisions in four huge detectors arranged around the beam tunnel.

The largest, called Atlas, is as big as a cathedral and as high as a five-storey building. It will effectively photograph particle smashes at a rate of 40 million times a second.

No-one knows precisely what will emerge from the bright flashes of disintegrating protons. --