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Cross-border co-operation on terrorism and crime will be compromised unless the UK updates the technology it uses for DNA profiling, experts have warned.

Using EU recommended markers Not using recommended markers Dat

Experts also say that the "chemistry" that underlies DNA testing kits used by UK forensic science labs is now more than a decade old and that newer, more sensitive systems can obtain results from even low quality samples - improving success rates. Some argue that such information can potentially make or break a case.

the Basic Steps of Cloning

Isolation of the Donor Nucleus

Harvest of Egg Cells

20 Animals That Have Been Cloned

1. Carp (Featured above: A common carp, as-yet-uncloned) An Asian carp was cloned successfully in 1963; ten years later, scientist Tong Dizhou also cloned a European crucian carp.

2. Dolly the Sheep Dolly saw the light of day in 1996. She lived until the age of six. The first cloned mammal, Dolly is considered to be a great success. Later, several hundred other Dollies were cloned.

some Brazilian biologists are pushing a more controversial idea: They want to save endangered species by cloning them.

The project is still in its infancy,

and no cloned jaguars or tamarins will likely be born anytime soon.

Recent advances in forensic DNA testing are now paving the way for reforming the manner by which cases are resolved in courts of law through the way suspected offenders are apprehended during a criminal investigation. Firstly, the availability of new markers which are more variable across different populations, adds to the increased power of discrimination once more genetic markers are used. From the time when DNA testing only involved seven to nine genetic markers to evaluate if crime scene evidence matches a suspect’s profile, as well as to determine relationships, to the current battery of 21 autosomal markers and 23 male-specific markers, the capacity of DNA profiling to differentiate individuals has increased significantly. The use of automated and expert systems for large-scale analysis has also been found to reduce manual errors and to increase output per unit time. The use of several dyes in a single multiplex system provides more information from the same amount of genetic material compared to reactions targeting only one genetic marker but requiring the same amount of DNA that was common in the early 1990s.

Using a newly applied scientific technique, researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have reached surprising findings about the role of nature versus nurture in the development of the neural circuits in the auditory cortex, the area of the brain responsible for processing information about sound.

A minority of people, however, cannot get enough social interaction, and some outright dread it.