The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 29

[Rolfe]

Many species have a small number of immature red cells in circulation in non-anaemic individuals. Man is one of them. That's why I said a trace of DNA. I think it would be difficult to find any biological fluid at all that didn't have a minimal amount present. Even acellular plasma.

A reticulocyte doesn't actually have a nucleus but it does have nuclear remnants in so there will be a bit of DNA.

 

[Stacyhs]

Many species have a small number of immature red cells in circulation in non-anaemic individuals. Man is one of them. That's why I said a trace of DNA. I think it would be difficult to find any biological fluid at all that didn't have a minimal amount present. Even acellular plasma.

A reticulocyte doesn't actually have a nucleus but it does have nuclear remnants in so there will be a bit of DNA.

Is it likely that there would be enough to get an identifying profile?

 

[Bill Williams]

Now, now...remember that this came from the same person who told us that murderers never admit to murder.

This is also the person who posted here that Stefanoni had testified under oath that she'd not handled the clasp-hooks.

Vixen posted that.

Then someone posted the actual text of Stefanoni's testimony. She'd actually said that she could not be sure one way or another if she'd handled them. She admitted this after being shown the video that her people had made at the time, to laughter in the courtroom.

 

[Vixen]

Why do you feel the need to write in the manner of stereotypical Native American English?

Further, every regular poster here is aware that Rolfe knows far more about biology than you could ever hope to. Fail.

Really? I could have sworn she was a vet. So now she's DNA-profiling sheep and cattle?

 

[Vixen]

Holy cow. Of course you can catch diseases from someone "simply by touching them". Are you really that ignorant? Seriously? You genuinely never fail to surpass yourself with these statements of how-wrong-can-you-get; often, like this one, complete with patronising "I can see you know little about...." schtick added in for further unintended amusement.


(Obviously if you require a cite I can provide pages full of them. But this is like needing to provide a cite that London is the capital of the UK.....)



ETA: Oh and Conti did not ever say (or imply) "DNA is spread about like dust every time we shake our hands". Rather, he made the eminently correct observation that it is indeed possible to transfer DNA through processes such as shaking hands. Very different.

No he didn't say shaking hands.

The vast majority of contagious diseases are air-borne, water borne or passed on through bodily fluids.

It is grossly stupid to give children talcum powder to demonstrate how diseases are passed around.

 

[Vixen]

Exactly. And the biology relevant to this subject (and to this case in general) is readily available to anyone with a genuine desire for accuracy and truth, and the capacity to learn and to analyse rationally and objectively. In a way, one can understand how the partisan prosecutors got so much of this wrong in this case - whether wilfully or as a product of their innate bias and tunnel vision - but it's unforgiveable how the lower convicting courts got it so wrong as well (mainly by blindly taking the prosecution's (mis)interpretation uncritically at face value). Fortunately for justice (albeit grossly delayed), the Italian Supreme Court ultimately corrected the lower convicting courts. And frankly, in any serious, intellectually-honest debate about the case, it behoves all of us on all sides of the debate to be well-informed before offering up analysis.


If I write about a subject - whether scientific, legal/judicial or any other factual topic - I try to ensure I am fully appraised of, and educated in, the subject at issue before entering the debate. Especially when I write statements of alleged fact (but, frankly, even when I write something under the caveat of "I believe that" etc). And on those (rare) occasions when I'm factually wrong, I concede and educate myself. I most certainly don't try to double down on my own stupid.

But y'know, that's just me.........

Nice try with the prolix but you still can't dispute that Forensic expert Stefanoni (who was actually there and did the tests in front of defence forensic scientists) DID find Amanda Knox' presumed blood (high RFU peaks and test for human blood positive) mixed in with a recent murder victim's blood and diluted with water at the same time.


No amount of guff can evade this irrefutable objective scientific finding.

 

[Vixen]

I wonder what Vixen thinks the word "contagious" means? (Hint, the first four letters are the key.)

Part of my first lecture series to undergraduate animal science students, who can be surprisingly illiterate. Cont-agious diseases are diseases spread by cont-act. Many but by no means all are skin diseases.

(Actually that's diseases where you actually need contact to get transmission. Infectious disease in general isn't so fastidious, managing to get itself spread in air droplets, in the water, in food, hell, I had an entire lecture. But really, contact will do it for most things.)

For goodness please don't teach young adults this. Most chronic skin conditions, eczema, psioriasis, dermatitis are NOT contagious. This is just teaching people to be ignorant. You cannot catch AIDS from someone by hugging them or shaking their hand.

Colds and flu are generally spread by coughs and sneezes. Tuberculosis often by drinking unpasteurised milk from infected cows.

Sheeeesh!!!

 

[Vixen]

Why yes, Vixen, I'm sure. Very sure. As you can see (or maybe not, apparently), I quoted Conti directly from the Netflix docu and it matches the pics you provided. Thank you for presenting them as evidence that what I quoted was accurate. Since you obviously failed to understand it the first time, here it is for you once again:



Nowhere does Conti say, as you claimed, that " DNA is spread around 'like dust' every time we shake our hands". Once again, you misrepresent what was actually said.
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Exactly where did I say any such a thing? Please quote me. But you can't because I never said that. I said, once again, that germs can transfer through touch such as shaking hands. Do I need to provide, yet again, the citations I provided earlier proving this?

May I suggest you take what Cicero said to heart:

"Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error"

For crying out loud. The skin cells you shed every day will not provide a full DNA profile. If you take a handful of typical dust you will find it contains allele fragments. This is known as background contamination and which is why a court of law requires a DNA identification of at least 10 alleles for it to be accepted as a proof of identity.

Raffaele Sollecito's DNA on the bra clasp is a full house 17-alleles. In any case he was never in Mez' room to shed his skin (or so he claims).

If the bra clasp is contaminated - and there is ZERO evidence it was, even Conti and Vecchiotti under oath had to admit this - then it also means Guede's DNA identification is null and void as it was collected the same time.

 

[Vixen]

Exactly. For example:

https://dhss.delaware.gov/dph/files/directindtranspi.pdf


Expect to have Vixen tell you that you are ignorant and to educate yourself.

Absolute rubbish! Yo will only catch cold or flu from someone if you touch their damp/wet air-borne splutterings and then touch your eyes and mouth.

The flu virus and the cold virus cannot penetrate your skin. It is spread by coughs and sneezes. SHEEESH. So ignorant.

 

[Vixen]

Deleted.

 

[Vixen]

you are just so wrong about the RFU giving any indication about the source of DNA it is hard to know how to correct you. The RFU is a consequence of the concentration of DNA from the original sample, the amount collected, the efficiency of DNA extraction, the amount of extract introduced into the assay (e.g. Steffanoni had to use vacuum extraction to concentrate DNA from the knife - which on your argument means the DNA cannot be from blood), the number of replication cycles, inhibitors in the extract, the speed of injection, the setting of the spectrophotometer, the calibration. The RFU is not a measure of DNA in the original sample, it is an arbitrary and relative measure.

We were talking about the height of RFU peaks. High RFU peaks are considered consistent with blood.

 

[Vixen]

Perhaps this is why Vixen has never presented evidence of her claim that high RFUs are associated with blood.

Please refer to the citation earlier in which it is confirmed that hospitals, clinics, etc consider blood to be 'the golden standard' for DNA extraction.

Think about what that means.

 

[Vixen]

Rolfe and Planigale, thanks for your informative responses.

I have seen some references that state that a mature mammalian red blood cell (rbc) has no DNA because it has no nucleus and no mitochondria. The references claimed that immature rbc, prior to its release into the blood, loses its nucleus and all mitochondria. However, as pointed out in your posts, some - possibly a relatively small number - of immature rbcs may be released in some disease states, such as anemia.

It should be pointed out that any DNA from mitochondria would require specialized mitochondrial DNA profiling rather than the standard forensic test for nuclear DNA STRs; the mtDNA identifies the maternal ancestry of an individual but is not a unique personal identifier.

Only female DNA can be identified from mtDNA (mitochodria) as only females have the X chromosome from which the mtDNA is extracted. Likewise only males can have Y-haplotypes identified as it carries down from the male line. If you want to know the mtDA background ask your mother or sister to be tested and that will tell you, likewise females can find out about the male line via their father or brother.

 

[LondonJohn]

No he didn't say shaking hands.

The vast majority of contagious diseases are air-borne, water borne or passed on through bodily fluids.

It is grossly stupid to give children talcum powder to demonstrate how diseases are passed around.

Ahhh, the good ol' "moving the goalposts" trick again, eh Vixen?

You stated (with patronising addiion);

"I can see you know little about pathology if you think you can catch disease from someone just by touching them. May I suggest you inform yourself?"

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12871744#post12871744


Can you spot there, Vixen, where you stated that one cannot catch a disease from someone just by touching them?

Please try to display some intellectual honesty in your attempts at argument. Here, for example, the intellectually-honest thing to have done would have been to write something like "Oh, OK sorry, I was wrong to have claimed that you can't catch diseases simply by touching someone."

 

[Vixen]

Ahhh, the good ol' "moving the goalposts" trick again, eh Vixen?

You stated (with patronising addiion);

"I can see you know little about pathology if you think you can catch disease from someone just by touching them. May I suggest you inform yourself?"

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12871744#post12871744



Can you spot there, Vixen, where you stated that one cannot catch a disease from someone just by touching them?

Please try to display some intellectual honesty in your attempts at argument. Here, for example, the intellectually-honest thing to have done would have been to write something like "Oh, OK sorry, I was wrong to have claimed that you can't catch diseases simply by touching someone."

When I said 'can't' it was 'can't' in general; not 'impossible'.

Of course there are notifiable diseases, such as Ebola, where medical staff need to dress head to toe in 'space suits'.

However, in general, it is perfectly safe to touch someone.

If you know someone has a compromised autoimmune system (for example extremely ill in hospital, perhaps with terminal cancer) of course you should stay away if you have a cold or flu. However, your cold or flu is transmitted by airborne droplets, with some perhaps landing on your fingers when you blow your nose or cover your mouth and then touching the ill person who then transfers it to his mouth, nose or eyes. (Or simply breathes in the airborne droplets.)

To believe it is passed on through skin - which actually forms a barrier to the outside world and protects you - is grossly ignorant.

 

[LondonJohn]

We were talking about the height of RFU peaks. High RFU peaks are considered consistent with blood.

No. No they are not.

Do you even know what RFUs are, and what they mean, Vixen? RFU stands for Relative Fluorescence Unit. The key word here is "relative. This means (in simple terms) "relative to background noise, Vixen".

So the RFU measure is nothing more or less than a measure of the "purity" of the DNA in the sample. Regardless of whether you have an otherwise sterile sample of someone's blood, skin, liver cells, cheek cells, brain cells, whatever.... you're going to be able to get high-RFU DNA results.

Oh and of course the absolute height of those RFUs is nothing more than a function of how and by how much the sample has been amplified.

The ignorance just keeeeeeeps on comin'........

 

[LondonJohn]

When I said 'can't' it was 'can't' in general; not 'impossible'.
Of course there are notifiable diseases, such as Ebola, where medical staff need to dress head to toe in 'space suits'.

However, in general, it is perfectly safe to touch someone.

If you know someone has a compromised autoimmune system (for example extremely ill in hospital, perhaps with terminal cancer) of course you should stay away if you have a cold or flu. However, your cold or flu is transmitted by airborne droplets, with some perhaps landing on your fingers when you blow your nose or cover your mouth and then touching the ill person who then transfers it to his mouth, nose or eyes.

To believe it is passed on through skin - which actually forms a barrier to the outside world and protects you - is grossly ignorant.

Oh this is just priceless!

The rest is just as bad. You were wrong, and you refuse to admit it. It's embarrassing.

Please, please, stop digging.


(Oh and by the way, you're further shifting the goalposts by trying to conflate a) passing a disease through touch contact, with b) passing a disease via skin-to-skin transfer into the body. The two are not the same. In fact, many diseases can be transmitted from individual to individual through touch contact - something you did indeed say was impossible - and then find their route into the second person's body when that person, for example, wipes their nose or handles food that then goes into their mouth. Were you deliberately trying to misdirect further, or are you yet more ignorant on this subject.....?)

 

[Vixen]

No. No they are not.

Do you even know what RFUs are, and what they mean, Vixen? RFU stands for Relative Fluorescence Unit. The key word here is "relative. This means (in simple terms) "relative to background noise, Vixen".

So the RFU measure is nothing more or less than a measure of the "purity" of the DNA in the sample. Regardless of whether you have an otherwise sterile sample of someone's blood, skin, liver cells, cheek cells, brain cells, whatever.... you're going to be able to get high-RFU DNA results.

Oh and of course the absolute height of those RFUs is nothing more than a function of how and by how much the sample has been amplified.

The ignorance just keeeeeeeps on comin'........

We weren't talking about 'absolutes' we were talking about relatives.

As an example, think about the GBP/USD daily money market charts. The dollar might move against the pound by one-thousandth of a cent, but because these economist want to understand volatility their graphs look super steep and look as though the dollar or pound has plunged or steeply risen, when if you look at the same graph over, say, a three-month period, why, it looks quite flat!

Likewise RFU peaks is a good analogy to fiscal volatility. You want to know just how reactive your sample is and high RFU peaks relatively are a joy for the scientist doing a PCR run.

 

[Vixen]

Oh this is just priceless!

The rest is just as bad. You were wrong, and you refuse to admit it. It's embarrassing.

Please, please, stop digging.


(Oh and by the way, you're further shifting the goalposts by trying to conflate a) passing a disease through touch contact, with b) passing a disease via skin-to-skin transfer into the body. The two are not the same. In fact, many diseases can be transmitted from individual to individual through touch contact - something you did indeed say was impossible - and then find their route into the second person's body when that person, for example, wipes their nose or handles food that then goes into their mouth. Were you deliberately trying to misdirect further, or are you yet more ignorant on this subject.....?)

What? Most viruses do not penetrate the skin.

 

[LondonJohn]

you shed every day will not provide a full DNA profile. [/HILITE] If you take a handful of typical dust you will find it contains allele fragments. This is known as background contamination and which is why a court of law requires a DNA identification of at least 10 alleles for it to be accepted as a proof of identity.

Astonishingly wrong. It's absolutely possible to obtain a full, court-usable DNA profile from shed epithelial skin cells. Just one example:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10198696

Raffaele Sollecito's DNA on the bra clasp is a full house 17-alleles. In any case he was never in Mez' room to shed his skin (or so he claims).

Why did Sollecito have to have been "in Mez' Mez's Kercher's room for his DNA to have ended up mixed into that pile of dust and debris containing the bra clasp, Vixen?

Are you, for example, even aware that Sollecito said that he used his hands to push hard against the exterior (i.e. hallway-facing) side of Kercher's bedroom door for several attempts? Are you further even aware that this door was by definition manipulated by either investigators or cleaners (in line with the sloppy, incompetent police work in this case, there's no record....) when it was taken off its hinges and placed within Kercher's room? Are you further even aware that a cleaner (presumably - again no record) spent time in Kercher's room moving stuff around and sweeping the floor (and it's safe to assume that this cleaner was taking zero steps to minimise cross-contamination)?

If the bra clasp is contaminated - and there is ZERO evidence it was, even Conti and Vecchiotti under oath had to admit this - then it also means Guede's DNA identification is null and void as it was collected the same time.

1) The presence of the DNA of at least two other unidentified males is, pretty much by definition, evidence that the bra clasp was contaminated.

2) What on Earth does this have to do with the evidence against Guede. Firstly, you are (of course) wrong that Guede's DNA - the important DNA evidence, that is - was collected "at the same time". In fact, the most damning sample of Guede's DNA was collected by the pathologist (Lalli) from inside and around Kercher's genital area. That moron Stefanoni and her incompetent "squad" were not involved in any way.

Yes, the Guede DNA from Kercher's bag was collected by the incompetent crime scene squad, and I have no idea quite how credible/reliable this evidence really was, because it was never properly tested within or outside the courtroom (because at the end of the day it was of very little importance in terms of proving Guede's guilt).

And secondly (as has been explained numerous times to you), there are a number of pieces of non-DNA evidence against Guede which, added to the genital DNA evidence, are absolutely sufficient to prove his guilt BARD.