The Free Ride is Over

From cbsnews.

Scientists in Israel have successfully fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA, potentially undercutting what has been considered key evidence in the conviction or exoneration in crime cases, the New York Times reported .

According to the newspaper, the scientists also demonstrated that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“Any biology undergraduate could perform this, said Dr. Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which is published online in the journal Genetics .

The paper asserts that while DNA analysis has become a centerpiece of law enforcement, the possibility that such evidence can be faked has not been considered.

“This is potentially huge news in the world of criminal justice, which hasnt yet even fully had the time to embrace DNA for all of its uses,” said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen . “And I suspect it wont be long before defense attorneys are using this study to undercut DNA analysis and conclusions in cases all over the country.”

“This is potentially terrible news for prosecutors and police and the military and all sorts of industries that use DNA testing to confirm or find information,” Cohen adds. “As the papers author says, ‘You can now just engineer a crime scene.’ Good news for crime dramas on television but not so much to the criminal justice system.”

“Itll be interesting to see how the legal world reacts to it and whether this study will be embraced or scorned by DNA experts here in the States,” Cohen said. “But you can be sure that before too long DNA evidence in criminal cases all over will be challenged based upon these findings.”

Zonked.

What happens when you bring a 22 year old mac into an apple store?

blog

It’s been a while since I blogged - been a little busy with the big day out, but I thought I might take a few seconds to write about the last few months. Justine and Calix and I spent Christmas in Sydney with her parents, and then on boxing day took off to Wombeyan Caves - a spot that Jus picked. We were about 100kms out of mobile range, on the other side of Mittagong. On Boxing day, of course, it was pissing down rain all day, and we were driving through clouds - this was stressful because we didn’t really know where we were going. The road wound through and up and down mountains and finally ended up at a beautiful cave system.

We camped in our small 3 room tent, and Justine cooked both over campfire and our little stove. It was generally relaxing not having anyone be able to contact us, but caused an amount of stress at the office when they were unable to get me.

Caving was fun, and once the rain had passed was certainly the coolest part of the day for us. Calix saw some monitor lizards and kangaroos, but none of us slept very well and by the time we got back to Sydney we were completely exhausted. Not really a great way to go into Big Day Out.

Big Day Out has been on the road for about 2 weeks now - and the Auckland, Gold Coast and 2 x Sydney shows have all been successful. The Sydney show always causes me stress from the point of view of just being hammered for access of every kind to every part of the site, but I took a relatively hard line this year on people and just tried to focus on what I had to do, which revolved around the fireworks show mostly.

Even though there was an issue with the video on the Friday night, the Saturday night fireworks went off without a hitch and ended the 100th show with a bang. For once in my life I made it to a Sydney BDO after show party with Justine and had a few drinks, although the next day was hard.

So here we are in Melbourne - the 101st Big Day Out. Wish us luck and lets see whats next.

b. #fb

More New Music

Train 6 is another one of those tracks written on headphones on a train. There are 6 of them, but I’ve only uploaded 2 (Train 3, and Train 6, I think).

Train 6 by bensuthers

High on Ice

mattdoherty:

Just returned from a climbing trip to NZ. My mate and I went up onto the Fox Glacier with a view to grabbing some summits. The weather is always the boss and very unpredictable at this time so we were lucky to get two perfect days up high. Day One was a big slog climbing up onto the top of the main divide ( 3000m ) From there we had intended to keep on going up to the summit of Mt Lendenfeld which was at the top of a thin ridge about 200m higher. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to make this as it was late and we needed about two and a half hours each way to climb the ridge as it was bullet hard ice which is unusual for this particular ridge which normally has a solid cover of snow which means you can solo it quite quickly….ANYWAY (solo means to climb without placing protection)

Next day we got high on some near vertical ice and came out after 200m of climbing with calves bursting on top of another ridge on the divide. Spectacular views and salami sandwiches for lunch! A long abseil and then a down climb to get back onto the glacier and after falling into a couple of crevasses we got back to the hut….nice to get high on ice!!

Some other dudes were high on a different type of ice when they broke into our van on the last night of our trip….they took pleasure in up tipping my pack so i was finding small possessions all over the shop (like my house keys hanging in a bush!) These fuckheads ended up with my new camera ( so sorry no pics ) and my ipod and my mate’s laptop as well as a bunch of my clothes (including all my thermal underwear….the fucking weirdos)

It is such a bad vibe when you have been robbed… hard to feel happy….FUCKERS!!