Why you should not commit a crime!

While doing research for my molecular genetics class, I came across the following paper:
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0074-02762006000900021&script=sci_arttext

Or in more scientific terms

Do Vale Gomes, A., F.L. Melo, R.P. Werkhauser, and F.G.C. Abath. 2006. Development of a real time polymerase chain reaction for quantitation of Schistosoma mansoni DNA. Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Crus (101).

Anyway, the point of the paper was that they were able to isolate a sample of 10fg! Yes, that's 10 femto-grams, 10^-15 g, or 0.0000000000000010 g of DNA, or about 2% of the DNA from a single cell! Yeah so it was from a parasite--Humans have way more DNA than a parasite and if they can sequence a worm they can certainly sequence a crook.

Excellent genetics review site

http://science.kennesaw.edu/~tmcelro/DNA%20Forensics/Genetics%20review/Review%20of%20Genetics.htm

This site contains an excellent selection of genetics figures and a brief overview of the procedures involved.

This guy is a quack, but his stuff is interesting!

So the guy is most probably a quack, but the sheer volume of "evidence" is a bit surprizing.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Simultaneous-Discoveries&id=573362

Quantum Mechanics and Free Will

A common postulate of quantum mechanics is that by confining a particle its energy is quantized. It is the confining of waves to a space that allows resonances to set up and standing waves to form. We see this with stings of fixed lengths. One may vibrate with a single node, or a node and an anti-node, or it may vibrate with integers of n multiples of nodes and anti-nodes. In 1924 Louis De Broglie proposed matter behaves in an analogous fashion. This astounding proposition has been since been experimentally verified by blasting crystals with electrons and a wave pattern results. The point of all of this is the assertion that objects when contained can exist in only a finite number of states and for a given ammount of energy there are only a few possibilities. When there are only a few possibilities a prediction can be made. If I flip a coin I know it must land on either heads or tails, it cannot come up apples, or aliens but only heads or tails can be the result. Consider this, we are born. We also die. Thus in at least a mortal sense we have a begining and an end. Thus we too must also be quantized, there is only a finite number of things we can do. Therefore our actions have at least some degree of predictability. We may be able to choose our energy state, but there is only a finite number of states we can exist in. If our actions are predictable then there is a devine will, but because we get to choose we also have free will, but the amazing corrallary of this entire train of logic is that if as many religions believe there is no begining and no end, or if we allow the supposition that we do exist after we die and before we are born (pre-mortal and post mortal lives) then we are no longer a confined particle ergo our energy states are no longer confined and we are allowed to do ANYTHING! I'll leave it to you to fill in the further implications of these assertions.

For Quantum References see Taylor, Zafiratos and Dubson. Modern Physics for Scientists and Engineers 2004