The Jaina Doctrine of Karma And The Science Of Genetics: DNA Fingerprinting

Forensic scientists are able to read the DNA sequences and find differences among species. They reduce base names down to letters "A", "C", "I", "G". Then scientists read the sequences of these letters by looking at one half of the ladder. Although the majority 99.9% of the letter sequence on a human DNA strand is identical, there are portions of each strand that differ from individual to individual. Thus in a DNA strand three billion letters, one tenth of one percent difference translates into three million separate spelling difference. These are differences that scientists examine in the process known as DNA finger printing to determine identity and heritage. Unfortunately for purpose of forensic DNA finger printing, scientists do not read all three billion letters. Instead, to save time and money, scientists look at very small handful of sites of variation. Along the DNA strand, or genome, there are regions where the base pair sequences repeat themselves. For instance, one person could have the sequences of T-A-C-T-G repeat three times and another person could have the same sequence repeat twice or appear only once. Thus, these normally biologically insignificant sequences repeatitions create spelling difference in particular areas. In general forensic scientists cut the DNA strands with an enzyme at these point of repeatition. Then they record the repeatition variations by reducing the data into a bar code type expression. When comparing DNA samples from crime scene evidence to a suspect's DNA sample, scientists will compare the "bar code" information from each site of variation. If "bar code" differs between the evidence and the suspect's DNA at any point, that particular suspect is usually ruled out as a possible source of DNA evidence. However, if the "bar codes" are the same along all points of variation tested, the suspect is considered more likely to have left the evidence.^[35]