Release Of Forensic Dna Results For Sierra Kills Sample

[Guest Tyler H]

Not a single complaint about the quality of her genetic findings. Not. A. Single. Complaint.

So you accept Disotell's speculation as valid and demand no "proof", or even "evidence" but are dumping all over Ketchum demanding exactly that? There's a name for that: double-standard.

Yes, I see a pattern: people endlessly speculating on how she is wrong/deceitful/etc, offering NO evidence that she is, and demanding that she prove them wrong "NOW NOW NOW!"

Um... Mulder... I get the impression that you consider yourself a logical thinker.

Do you realize that we CAN'T (not in an NDA type "can't" sort of way) say anything about her claims, because she has not tried to provide any proof of her claims? That's not our fault that we have none of her data. What we HAVE done is release hard data that seems (notice I say "seems") to invalidate or at least call in to question many of her claims.

Regarding our data, or Disotell's speculation. Our data and his speculation do not need to be held to the same standard. Neither he, nor I, nor Bart are making "extraordinary claims" which, as you know, "require etraordinary proof". We are releasing reports with very pedestrian conclusions. I have yet to find a single PhD biologist or geneticist who has contentions with my report. And I gotta say, that my report is actually a bit lacking in my opinion. I look forward to Bart's report which will be more robust due to the sort of DNA recovered, and due to us learning to improve as we go.

[Guest Theagenes]

And human hair:

[Guest BartloJays]

Any others? I left out the Bigfoot Knights Of Templar. Anyway, don't cut yourself with Occam's Razor.

And don't be so sure about that lol. As I was telling my Midwest lab director, since Ive been involved there's been so many crazy twist and turns that I wouldn't even bet my last name is Cutino right now.

[Guest Tyler H]

Okay, thanks. No need to check. It would not be snipped. It must be plucked to obtain the tissue at the root. The shaft of the hair is protein (keratin) only and will not yield results related to nucleic acid. I guess what I am really trying to get at is how sure are you that there was not a loose (I.e. contaminant) hair in your 2nd sample?

A contaminant hair could create a scenario whereby all 3 parties are providing truthful information. I can think of 2 scenarios in which universal primers would fail miserably in the detection of an uncharacterized species, but there is no point in going there, if you are 100% certain that the hair used in the test had been attached to the hide.

Tomafoot, you sound like you know more about this process than I do... but I thought I understood that hair CAN now yield DNA even when no root is present?

[Guest]

Tyler,

Was the bear green, or did the sample go bad in Justin's freezer?

[Guest Tyler H]

Tyler,

Was the bear green, or did the sample go bad in Justin's freezer?

lol

I think storing it with Kryptonite was the wrong way to go.

[Cisco]

Well..... I think we have beaten all of the dust off this rug. I wish I had more questions or comments but I'm out of them until the MK study is released.

My thanks to Bart & Tyler for their hard work, honesty and willingness to subject themselves to all rational and irrational questions or comments.

I look forward to the rest of your results and please let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

[Guest tomafoot]

Mulder - could you provide evidence where Melba denied this? The closest I heard her say is "well, some people have said that" and "some people may have believed that" But I have never heard her say she never said that. I DID hear assertions directly from people involved in her study, that Melba used those terms - that she felt it was 'something not of this world'.

Laboratories are quite often emotional hothouses full of pressure and tension with conflict sprouting all over the place. Nearly everyone has an ego and the boss may bruise a few along the way. It always feels good to make the point in return that the boss isn't all that smart or is a flaming unmentionable. Therefore, such assertions by insiders should be taken with a grain of salt.

[southernyahoo]

2 PhD's examined the hair. No official report was made, as I was told repeatedly (and have expressed on here repeatedly, and do believe) that hair analyisis is relatively subjective and much less conclusive than DNA results.

That being said, one of the PhD's is preparing a hair analyisis report. May still be a week or two.

In the meantime, here are some hair pics from one of the informal analyses. This particular analysis seemed to base most of it's opinion on scaling patterns. It came from Dr. Martyn Obbard of Canada's Ministry of Natural Resources. He is considred a "bear expert"

Thanks for the pics, those scales are like a bear's.

I was thinking of one like this.

Mulder - could you provide evidence where Melba denied this? The closest I heard her say is "well, some people have said that" and "some people may have believed that" But I have never heard her say she never said that. I DID hear assertions directly from people involved in her study, that Melba used those terms - that she felt it was 'something not of this world'.

See how a simple expression can get twisted. God particles, Angel DNA, not in Genbank........The alignment scores will set it straight.

[Guest tomafoot]

Tomafoot, you sound like you know more about this process than I do... but I thought I understood that hair CAN now yield DNA even when no root is present?

Nothing is impossible, but the amount estimated in your report would suggest that tissue was attached. I think maybe the point is that the tests are now sensitive enough that it is no longer required that a dermal papilla (bulb at root) be apparent to ensure good results. But, I'm not a forensics guy.

[Guest]

As I understand it, you should be able to get mtDNA from the hair alone, but you will need the follicle also to have a chance of getting nuDNA.

Happy to be corrected by the experts, e.g. genesrus.

[Guest]

I would like to add to this conversation a few things that need to be taken into consideration. I am NO DNA expert, nor do I play one on TV, but when this sample was first obtained it was handled by hand. I have picture proof of that. When Melba received the sample she extracted a "tube" of tissue from the inside of the sample, and yes there was enough to do that easily.

1. The sample first went to a very avid bear hunters house.

2. The sample was stored in a freezer with other bear meat.

3. I would guess that the sample was cut into pieces using the same knife and cutting board that had cut up many pieces of bear, and yes I Will try and confirm this with

Justin .

4. I can say beyond a shadow of doubt that there is bear DNA all over that particular environment.

5. When this sample was first obtained he had no idea how to handle it. I educated him, the best I could after the sample had already been collected.

When Justin went and found the flesh, that was the last thing he'd expected to find. He was up there looking for bodies.

Justins contamination is obviously all over the outside of the sample, and it's pretty safe to say that due to the bear rich environment that is Justins house, and the very real possibility that it was chewed on by a bear prior to recovery obviously makes clear where the bear contamination could have came from. I'm not saying this is fact, but I am saying that this is a very real possibility.

DR

[Guest OntarioSquatch]

Sounds like the sample went through a lot of contamination.

[Guest]

But if the sample was an unknown primate that would be the predominate DNA found even with bear contamination, as Mulder says DNA=Critter. If the critter is there the DNA will be too if the contaminates from the site, i.e. bear and Justin's DNA, were on it also.

[Guest RayG]

In my infinite short-sightedness, I did not record my conversations with no less than 7 PhD's as I tried to find the best lab, and processes to accomplish those goals. I DO have the report from the one lab, and Bart will have the report from a second lab. We also have the word of people on this forum who have their PhD, and are involved in genetics, saying there is nothing wrong with my lab's report. (But I do agree that it is not as conclusive as Bart's will be, since his lab matched Justin's DNA genomically, while my lab only did it mitochondrically to essentially just a haplotype.) May I ask, as I went through the initial interview process with Doctors and labs that I ended up not using, what should I have done and what venue would you like to have seen that presented on, wherein they said "I support the actions taken by this nobody named Tyler Huggins, after he phoned me last year, and we talked on th ephone for 15 minutres. and he paid me no money. I really felt it was a good use of my time to make a statement in writing for him though, just in case someone asked for it one day down the road after they refused to accept the actual lab report. Signed, Dr. Likesbeingjerkedaround"

Nah, no worries, I just thought if there were MULTIPLE PhDs weighing in on this, surely one of them would have recognized the magnitude of proving the existence of a huge undiscovered, unclassified, North American bipedal primate. And surely if they recognized the possible advancement to their career from this discovery and classification, they would have been on this like white on rice. There would have been something announced in a reputable journal, discussions amongst geneticists, biologists, zoologists, all sorts of '..ists' that specialize in this sort of thing, and mainstream science sitting up and very much paying attention. As this is not happening, it doesn't fill me with a whole lot of optimism.

RayG