At 12:21 PM 9/9/00 -0400, A. Melon wrote:
DNA evidence has proven so useful in police work that, the US Department of Justice is developing a bank of DNA culled from ordinary house cats, reports the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER.
I had the misfortune to awaken to an NPR report about this. What they are assembling is not a full sequencing of Felix (first they'll do mice or chimps, after people) but a map of 'markers', which are the little fragments that individuals have or don't have. They need to know how these are distributed in catdom and vary between the races of cats ---just like they do for humans (the one-in-a-zillion paternity- or forensic- type stats are conditional on race). Clearly cypherpunks need to pass around a bowl of cat hair at the next meeting... give a little, take a little.. the host isn't allergic, is he?