Current Event: The Archaeology of Poop

Current Event 

     This is not quite what comes to mind when one thinks of archaeological discoveries.  The examination of ancient poop t is one way that DNA from thousands of years ago can be recovered. The proper archaeological term for the study of poop is called the study of paleofeces or non-hardened fossils.  Paleofeces are studied to determine how the people of the time ate, what their diet consisted of, their health, and even more about the plant and animal life that existed around them.  Yes, all this can be found in the DNA of poop.

      The process of recovering DNA from paleofeces involves a simple five step procedure involving liquid nitrogen, a diabetic drug, a polymerase chain reaction machine, and poop. The nitrogen freezes the poop so it can be ground into a fine powder, the diabetic drug is used to break down the sugar compounds in the surrounding DNA, and the chain reaction machine is used to make millions of copies of the recovered DNA to be compared to other DNA fragments from different sources found at the site.

The reason this is possible is because of the process known as the Maillard reaction, named after Louis Camille Maillard . What happens is that as the feces dries a hard crust forms on the outside . The sugars from the digested plant material begin to react with surrounding amino acids forming  larger sugar compounds.  These basically encase the DNA preserving it for future extraction.

      It is pretty neat to think that so much information can be found in paleofeces that is thousands of years old.  It was Hendrik Poinar and Svante Paabo from the Max Planck Institute in Munich who recovered the first successful DNA sample from paleofeces in 1998.  It was in 2008 that the first human DNA extraction was made by the Kristin Sobolik, archeologist from the University of Maine Orono.

Just recently archaeologists have unearthed 700 year old barrels filled with poop in Denmark.  Unfortunately, the Maillard reaction had not occurred since the waste was sealed in the barrels.  There was no sugar coating to keep the smell in.  Yet the discovery was remarkable and the waste found told a lot about the people who lived in Demark 700 years ago.  The archaeologists just had to endure the smell.  

     I wonder if our society today, with all the waste treatment plants, has inadvertently put an end to DNA sampling of our poop by future scientists?  Who knows, maybe each city will create a time capsule with a little sample of poop to let future generations know about how we existed.

Current Event: Legalizing Illegal Immigration?

Current Event 4

Is this who the United States citizens want in their neighborhoods?

      The topic of illegal immigration has been a controversial debate for years now.  It seems as though every political candidate has something to say about illegal immigration.  According to Fox News even Job Bush has an opinion on illegal immigration.

     "It's an act of love. It's an act of commitment to your family," Bush said. "I honestly think that that is a different kind of crime. There should be a price paid, but it shouldn't rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families."

     It sounds nice that illegal immigrants just want to support their families.  Those who really do this should come into this country the legal way.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies in its article The Myth of the "Otherwise Law-Abiding" Illegal Alien it discusses how politicians want U.S. citizens to believe that illegal aliens are made up of law abiding people who are only guilty of crossing the boarder illegally. That may be true of some but the majority are not law abiding people.

     Some of the violation from illegals entering the United States include false impersonation of a U.S. citizen, lying to government officials about being a U.S. Citizen, and taking someones social security number to name a few.

     The Obama administration has chosen to ignore these types of illegal criminal activities which the White House has called "administrative amnesty," a sort of prioritization scheme.

     Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta has done and in depth year long survey spanning from 1999 to 2006 on the 15 to 20 million illegal aliens in U.S. and the 700,000 illegal immigrants who come into this country yearly.  She reported that there are about 240,000 illegal sex offenders in the U.S.  These 240,000 illegal aliens have committed about 960,000 sex offenses in the U.S.

     "This translates to 93 sex offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders coming across U.S. borders illegally per day," Kauflin said. " Each sex offender averaged 4 victims."

     According to the Center for Immigration Studies households headed in 2002 by illegal aliens has imposed more that $26.3 billion in costs to the federal government. They only paid $16 billion in taxes costing  the U.S. taxpayers $10 billion dollars.
   
     In Los Angeles 95 percent of the outstanding warrants for homicide are attributed to illegal aliens.  In Southern California over 60 percent of the Hispanic gangs are made up of illegal aliens, which numbers tens of thousands.

     Illegal immigration brings drugs, gangs and crime into the U.S.  Why would Jeb Bush over look these statistics?  He should be concerned with wanting the decent illegal alien to come into this country legally and do the right thing and prosper. There are many immigrants who come into this country the legal way and have done well by their families and for themselves.