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Ohio Bill Would Require Biological Father's Consent For Abortion
A bill (HR 252) introduced this month in the Ohio House would require a pregnant woman seeking an abortion to obtain written consent from the fetus" biological father, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. If the woman does not know the identity of the biological father, she would have to provide proof of paternity tests of potential fathers. The bill is sponsored by Rep. John Adams (R) and co-sponsored by four other Republicans.The bill would establish "abortion fraud" as a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. Repeat offenders could be charged with a fifth-degree felony, punishable by up to one year in jail and up to a $2,500 fine. The bill is not clear as to who could be fined or jailed. Becki Brenner, president of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio, said that she believes doctors would be the ones ultimately fined or jailed.Brenner criticized the bill, saying that a woman would have to pay at least $1,400 for each DNA test if she is unsure who the father is. Brenner called the legislation "a burden on a woman," adding that the whole purpose behind the bill is to make it harder to obtain a legal abortion. She said, "Hopefully, [the bill] won"t even get debate in the committee" because it is "blatantly anti-woman."Paula Westwood, executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, said that her group supports the bill. She added, "I would think men would want to have these rights."According to the Enquirer, the bill does not have the support of the House Democratic majority. The current version of the bill has not been assigned to a committee, and it is unlikely to pass the House, much like past bills seeking new restrictions on abortion (Craig/Preston, Cincinnati Enquirer, 7/24).
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Law Firm Appointed To Boost Fight Against NHS Fraud
A new partnership between NHS Counter Fraud and law firm Capsticks will strengthen support to health bodies seeking to recover NHS funds lost to fraud.
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Variants Of 'Umami' Taste Receptor Contribute To Our Individualized Flavor Worlds
Using a combination of sensory, genetic, and in vitro approaches, researchers from the Monell Center confirm that the T1R1-T1R3 taste receptor plays a role in human umami (amino acid) taste.
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Exploring Standards To Advance Microbial Genomics

Microbes contribute to manifold human endeavors ranging from bioenergy to agriculture to medicine. Moreover, they make the Earth"s biogeochemical cycles go round, a prerequisite for all life on the planet. Exceedingly numerous, they are also extremely diverse, encompassing most of Earth"s total biodiversity. So it should come as no surprise to find that two-thirds of the nearly 5,000 genome projects reported in the Genomes OnLine Database involve microbes. But far more could be done with microbial genomics, according to DOE JGI Genome Biology head Nikos Kyrpides, if researchers would embrace the world of possibilities that lie beyond the present anthropocentric focus and would also institute shared standards for genomic data collection and analysis. In a perspective piece published in the July issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Kyrpides reflects on the role of microbial studies in the genomics revolution of the past decade, and considers the factors that have hindered the advancement of the field. Although nearly 1,000 microbial genomes have been sequenced over the past 15 years, nearly a quarter of them by DOE JGI, he noted that the data obtained has been compromised by the lack of standards for so many critical procedures in the field, procedures ranging from simple data exchange to gene finding, function prediction, and metabolic pathway description. Echoing other researchers, most notably DOE JGI"s Patrick Chain and Miriam Land during the recent "Sequencing, Finishing, Analysis in the Future" Conference, Kyrpides calls for the development of genome annotation standards and their adoption by sequencing centers around the world - a necessity for meaningful genome comparisons. Kyrpides offers numerous suggestions to meet these and other challenges that face genomics research in the decade ahead. For example, the list of microbial genomes for potential sequencing, limited to the approximately one percent of the organisms that can be cultured in the lab, has been further biased by a focus on a few groups of particular impact on human health or activities. Thus, vast realms of biodiversity remain unexplored. Kyrpides applauds the effort to coordinate balanced sampling of the Tree of Life recently launched through GEBA: the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea. He also sees a way forward using single-cell genomics - a technique now being pursued in earnest by DOE JGI researcher Tanja Woyke and her colleagues - in partnership with environmental metagenomics to provide a more holistic understanding of microbial communities and their individual members. Kyrpides also suggests several innovative approaches for easing the data processing bottleneck accompanying the exponential increase in genomic data. All-versus-all gene comparisons - previously a common practice - will become infeasible. To reduce the size of the datasets, he proposes a proxy approach in which one protein from each protein family or one species from each genus represents the group. Taking this one step farther, all the genes from all the sequenced strains in a species - the pan-genome for that species - would constitute the genome representing that species for gene comparisons. Sharing his vision for the future of microbial genomics, Kyrpides observes: "The remarkable number of microbes - already estimated to be several orders of magnitude greater than the number of stars in the universe - urgently calls for a transition from random, anecdotal, and small scale surveys towards a systematic and comprehensive exploration of our planet." With new tools in hand and international initiatives for increased collaboration underway, the field of microbial genomics is poised for a decade of exciting advances. The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, supported by DOE"s Office of Science, is committed to advancing genomics in support of DOE missions related to clean energy generation and environmental characterization and cleanup. DOE JGI, headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif., provides integrated high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis that enable systems-based scientific approaches to these challenges. David Gilbert DOE/Joint Genome Institute


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