I don’t know what kind of lawyer Mr. Kwame Akuffo is, but he eerily appears to be ages behind the times. In the wake of the quite disturbing discovery, via DNA analysis, that the three children that Nii Odartey Lamptey, the former Ghanaian international soccer star, had always believed were his own by his wife Gloria Lamptey, may actually belong to three different men, Mr. Akuffo was reported to have smugly stated that the aggrieved and estranged Mr. Lamptey may well find himself legally charged with “scandalizing his children for the rest of their lives,” simply because the latter had decided to go public with this understandably upsetting scientifically acclaimed revelation of the apparent unchastity of his wife (See “Odartey Lamptey Has Scandalized [His] Kids For Life; May Be Liable For Condoning Marital Fraud – Kwame Akuffo” MyJoyOnline.com/ Modernghana.com 11/29/13).

Any lawyer who can so boldly and foolhardily claim DNA evidence to be mere “expert evidence” in any legitimately constituted court of law in any civilized nation, ought to either have his license to practice immediately revoked or be promptly counseled to seek psychiatric examination. Needless to say, DNA evidence is globally admissible in any worthwhile judicial system as a foolproof scientific evidence in paternity cases. It is also routinely used to establish kinship under various circumstances and for various reasons. Even the DNA of deceased persons is routinely used to establish the kinship and identity of the living.

And so it is rather curious that Mr. Akuffo would so cavalierly presume to either controvert or seriously impugn the validity of any forensic evidence so collected. About the only cases in which DNA evidence may not be judicially sustainable is if the circumstances under which such evidence was collected and analyzed could be forensically proven to have been contaminated either before or during the process of the collection of the evidence in question.

And so far, there is no evidence from any legal representatives of Mrs. Gloria Lamptey’s vehemently challenging the latest scientific evidence, indicating that, indeed, the DNA evidence upon which Mr. Lamptey based the impugnation of the chastity of his wife was, in fact, too contaminated to be credibly held up as foolproof scientific evidence before a court of law. I write from personal experience, believe me.

But even then, the lawyers of the accused woman may have to conclusively prove that Mr. Lamptey knowingly and maliciously used contaminated DNA evidence to publicly impugn the chastity and/or the conjugal fealty of his wife, perhaps in a curious bid to shirking his parental and conjugal responsibilities. A credible scenario would be for attorneys representing Mrs. Lamptey establishing a pretextually clear case of Mr. Lamptey’s having recently struck up an extra-marital affair. So far, Mrs. Gloria Lamptey has only been reported in some media reports to be claiming that her husband is medically infertile, and that it was he who expressly advised her to seek artificial insemination as a viable alternative to his inability to father children. This claim has yet to be either confirmed or denied by the retired soccer great.

At any rate, if, indeed, it turns out that Nii Odartey Lamptey is truthfully accusing his wife of conjugal infidelity, or adultery, in Christo-Biblical parlance, then, of course, the question of him having “scandalized his hitherto presumed children” clearly becomes a non-issue. At best, the only recourse for remediation would be for all the parties involved to promptly seek psychological counseling, with Mrs. Lamptey coming to terms with the imperative need for her to determine the identities of the biological fathers of each of her three children, if it turns out that she had been “inseminated” with the sperm of more than one “donor,” assuming her reported media allegation of the preceding contains any iota of validity.

Since we as yet do not know the full details of the reasons and/or causes that might have prompted Mr. Lamptey to subject his hitherto presumed children to a DNA examination and verification of kinship, we can only reasonably conclude, and perhaps even partially concur with Mr. Akuffo, that at the worst, the renowned former soccer star has an obligation to explain to a stunned and bewildered Ghanaian public, precisely why it took him twenty protracted years to realize that his legitimately wedded wife was, after all, “a gold-digging demimonde,” in American parlance.

If he can convincingly prove to both the bemused Ghanaian public and a court of law that he had absolutely no way of knowing that Mrs. Gloria Lamptey had been cheating on him and, by logical extension, routinely flouting their conjugal vows for the two decades that they presumably shared one matrimonial bed, then, of course, his now publicly humiliated and estranged wife may be in deep trouble, at least in terms of the divvying up of wealth and property acquired while the marriage lasted.

For more related news, visit our site: KOYAL INFOMAG

It’s a truism that the ocean depths will remain Earth’s last great wilderness, and judging by the recent find of a new species of 'skeleton shrimp' there’s still a lot of eye-popping discoveries yet to be made.

Named Liropus minusculus due to their small size, these tiny crustaceans (above) were identified by a research team from the University of Seville and were found living in a reef cave offshore from California’s Catalina Island. The female of the species is on the left and the male on the right, with their descriptions first published 8 October in the journal Zootaxa.

They belong to a family of animals known as Caprellidae, and although the creatures are most commonly identified as ‘ghost shrimps’ or ‘skeleton shrimps’ (a moniker given in recognition of the tiny crustaceans slender, translucent bodies) they are not in fact shrimps, but a type of crustacean known as amphipods.

José Manuel Guerra-García, the lead author of the paper describing Liropus minusculus, first realized that the 'shrimp' constituted an undiscovered species after seeing specimens in a museum in 2010. The find is remarkable as it constitutes the first example of the Liropus genus found in the northeast Pacific Ocean.

Although their claws look fearsome (technically these are gnathopods, described by the Encyclopedia Brittanica as claws “used to grasp females during copulation”) these are tiny creatures just a couple of millimetres in length. Guerra-García has suggested that L. minusculus might in fact be the smallest example of its genus.

Like the similarly proportioned praying mantis, many species of Caprellidae are patient predators, lying in wait for long periods of time before snatching and eating creatures even smaller than themselves.

Their angular bodies and pale colouring also help, allowing them to blend in among the seaweed and vegetation on the sea floor. Although they are occasionally found in the ocean’s deeper climes their preferred habitat is the intertidal and subtidal zone.

Mixing milk

Food adulteration is an unsavoury fact of modern life. Many foodstuffs are targeted by criminal gangs because of their high value, so mixing them with cheaper alternatives while selling at the price of the pure material leads to higher profits. Pursue this tactic at the national or international scale and there is good money to be made.

One of the more surprising foods that have been targeted is milk. Not the common cows’ milk that we drink in the Western world, but milk from more exotic species likes the yak, buffalo or camel. These types have been mixed with milk from the cow or goat, and goat milk itself has been adulterated with cheaper cow milk. It is difficult to see or taste the difference when milk has been adulterated but scientific methods are available.

In particular, NMR and IR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis, ELISA and the polymerase chain reaction have been successfully employed. A further technique is 2D gel electrophoresis (2-DE) which has been reported recently for the characterisation of mammalian milk but there has been little work to study the differences in the 2-DE maps of different species.

This situation has now been rectified by Chinese researchers who have examined five types of milk. Jiaqi Wang and colleagues from the Institute of Animal Science at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, and the Institute of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine at Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hefei, used 2-DE backed up by mass spectrometry to help identify milk adulteration.

Well gel

Milk was collected from buffalos, yaks, camels, goats and cows at various farms in China. Samples of the same species were pooled to provide uniformity and the skimmed milk was prepared for analysis. Samples from one species alone or with up to 5% adulteration by one other type of milk were prepared.

All of the samples were subjected to 2-DE with isoelectric focussing over pH 4-7 followed by separation on polyacrylamide gels. This process separated the proteins across the gel in two dimensions and they were visualised by staining the gels with the dye Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250. The intensities of the dye on the respective spots are a measure of the amount of protein in that spot.

Each pure milk was subjected three times to 2-DE and master gel maps for each species were created by comparing the 2-DE maps. Then, the researchers looked for proteins that were present in the milk mixtures but absent from the pure milks as a way to detect adulteration and these spots were identified by mass spectrometry.

Animal species identified

At first glance, the protein maps of cow, yak and buffalo milk were similar but those of camel and goat were different, as might be expected. Those differences not only allowed modified mixtures to be detected, but also revealed which type of milk had been added. They key proteins were β-lactoglobulin, α-lactalbumin and αS1-casein. 

For instance, β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin from cow or goat milk mark the adulteration of camel milk. This is supported by the detection of the αS1-caseins from the cow and the goat, which have different molecular masses and isoelectric points from that of the camel, so appear in different positions on the gels.

Yak milk adulteration by cow milk was highlighted by a β-lactoglobulin variant which is absent in the yak but present in cow milk. Similarly, the β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin of goat milk revealed its presence in yak milk. Conversely, goat milk adulteration with yak milk was marked by the presence of yak β-lactoglobulin and α-lactalbumin.

These three proteins from each species were sufficient to unearth the adulteration of one milk by another, down to contamination levels of 0.5%. The gels are reproducible for each species, with the proteins appearing in the same positions so, in theory, it is not necessary to identify the protein spots for successful tests. However, it would be wise to confirm their identities before establishing a lab test.

I don’t know what kind of lawyer Mr. Kwame Akuffo is, but he eerily appears to be ages behind the times. In the wake of the quite disturbing discovery, via DNA analysis, that the three children that Nii Odartey Lamptey, the former Ghanaian international soccer star, had always believed were his own by his wife Gloria Lamptey, may actually belong to three different men, Mr. Akuffo was reported to have smugly stated that the aggrieved and estranged Mr. Lamptey may well find himself legally charged with “scandalizing his children for the rest of their lives,” simply because the latter had decided to go public with this understandably upsetting scientifically acclaimed revelation of the apparent unchastity of his wife (See “Odartey Lamptey Has Scandalized [His] Kids For Life; May Be Liable For Condoning Marital Fraud – Kwame Akuffo” MyJoyOnline.com/ Modernghana.com 11/29/13).

Any lawyer who can so boldly and foolhardily claim DNA evidence to be mere “expert evidence” in any legitimately constituted court of law in any civilized nation, ought to either have his license to practice immediately revoked or be promptly counseled to seek psychiatric examination. Needless to say, DNA evidence is globally admissible in any worthwhile judicial system as a foolproof scientific evidence in paternity cases. It is also routinely used to establish kinship under various circumstances and for various reasons. Even the DNA of deceased persons is routinely used to establish the kinship and identity of the living.

And so it is rather curious that Mr. Akuffo would so cavalierly presume to either controvert or seriously impugn the validity of any forensic evidence so collected. About the only cases in which DNA evidence may not be judicially sustainable is if the circumstances under which such evidence was collected and analyzed could be forensically proven to have been contaminated either before or during the process of the collection of the evidence in question.

And so far, there is no evidence from any legal representatives of Mrs. Gloria Lamptey’s vehemently challenging the latest scientific evidence, indicating that, indeed, the DNA evidence upon which Mr. Lamptey based the impugnation of the chastity of his wife was, in fact, too contaminated to be credibly held up as foolproof scientific evidence before a court of law. I write from personal experience, believe me.

But even then, the lawyers of the accused woman may have to conclusively prove that Mr. Lamptey knowingly and maliciously used contaminated DNA evidence to publicly impugn the chastity and/or the conjugal fealty of his wife, perhaps in a curious bid to shirking his parental and conjugal responsibilities. A credible scenario would be for attorneys representing Mrs. Lamptey establishing a pretextually clear case of Mr. Lamptey’s having recently struck up an extra-marital affair. So far, Mrs. Gloria Lamptey has only been reported in some media reports to be claiming that her husband is medically infertile, and that it was he who expressly advised her to seek artificial insemination as a viable alternative to his inability to father children. This claim has yet to be either confirmed or denied by the retired soccer great.

At any rate, if, indeed, it turns out that Nii Odartey Lamptey is truthfully accusing his wife of conjugal infidelity, or adultery, in Christo-Biblical parlance, then, of course, the question of him having “scandalized his hitherto presumed children” clearly becomes a non-issue. At best, the only recourse for remediation would be for all the parties involved to promptly seek psychological counseling, with Mrs. Lamptey coming to terms with the imperative need for her to determine the identities of the biological fathers of each of her three children, if it turns out that she had been “inseminated” with the sperm of more than one “donor,” assuming her reported media allegation of the preceding contains any iota of validity.

Since we as yet do not know the full details of the reasons and/or causes that might have prompted Mr. Lamptey to subject his hitherto presumed children to a DNA examination and verification of kinship, we can only reasonably conclude, and perhaps even partially concur with Mr. Akuffo, that at the worst, the renowned former soccer star has an obligation to explain to a stunned and bewildered Ghanaian public, precisely why it took him twenty protracted years to realize that his legitimately wedded wife was, after all, “a gold-digging demimonde,” in American parlance.

If he can convincingly prove to both the bemused Ghanaian public and a court of law that he had absolutely no way of knowing that Mrs. Gloria Lamptey had been cheating on him and, by logical extension, routinely flouting their conjugal vows for the two decades that they presumably shared one matrimonial bed, then, of course, his now publicly humiliated and estranged wife may be in deep trouble, at least in terms of the divvying up of wealth and property acquired while the marriage lasted.

For more related news, visit our site: The Koyal Group

Theoretical physicist Ana Maria Rey uses the computer, as well as pencil and paper, to develop mathematical models that describe the behavior of ultra-cold atoms. The idea is to use these systems to learn more about condensed matter physics and quantum mechanics with the goal of inspiring new materials, precision measurements and quantum information.

Using ultra-cold atoms, "we aim to develop synthetic materials that do not exist in nature, but which can help us understand materials that do exist in nature," says National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist Rey, a research assistant professor in the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of Physics and a fellow at JILA, a joint institute of the university and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

"Electrons in solids can exhibit rich behavior, complex behavior, that we do not understand," she adds. "This behavior comes from interactions of many electrons. When the electrons in the solids interact and see other electrons, the laws of quantum mechanics govern how they behave. This is very complicated behavior. This behavior is so complex that even a classical computer cannot solve it."

Rey is a recent recipient of one of this year's prestigious MacArthur fellowships, a $625,000 no-strings-attached award, popularly known as a "genius" grant. These go to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their fields.

She also has received about $500,000 in NSF funding since her arrival at JILA in 2008 for work that includes modeling the behavior of ultra-cold atoms and polar molecules.

Rey and her colleagues create artificial materials by trapping atoms with light. In order to do this, "we have to make them very cold," she explains. "We then use lasers to try to mimic the potential that electrons feel in real solids."

Ultimately, her research could lead to new materials for more effective superconductors, as well as new magnetic behavior that could speed up computer development. One of the eventual goals, for example, is to develop new materials that super-conduct at room temperature, rather than only in extreme cold.

"This will help everything, because nowadays you have to cool the materials down, which is very expensive," she says. "If we don't have to cool them down, everything that uses superconductivity can be made much less expensively."

She also is developing a comprehensive theoretical framework for an optical-lattice quantum computer based on alkaline earth metals, and she already has proposed solutions for problems associated with storing, addressing, and transporting qubits, which are the quantum equivalent of traditional computing bits.

Among other things, she is attempting to resolve long-standing obstacles to large-scale entanglement between atoms, which quantum computers require both for communication and calculations.

"We want to use atoms trapped in light to create a quantum computer," she says. "The internal levels of the atom are the qubits of the computer. For example, we are proposing atoms in the second column of the periodic table--alkaline Earth elements, such as strontium--which have large number of degrees of freedom to improve computation capabilities."

Such research potentially could produce smaller and faster computers with capabilities that classical computers do not now have. "A classical computer has to do its computations one at a time, but with quantum mechanics, all the computations are done in parallel," she says.

Finally, she also is working on advances in developing an optical atomic clock.

"Atoms are a tool that allows us to measure time in a very precise way," she says. "The energy levels of an atom are like the ticking of a clock. The higher the energy separation between levels, the more ticks you have and the more precise your clock.

"The atomic clock measures time, and to measure time better, we need more atoms," she says. "The more atoms we have, the higher the signal-to-noise ratio, meaning that in principle, the clock is more precise."

One persistent problem, however, is that atom collide, "and that is bad for the clock," she adds. "What I have done is try to understand the origins of these collisions, and try to control them in order to improve the clock."

--             Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation

Investigators

Ana Rey

Deborah Jin

Chris Greene

Eric Cornell

Murray Holland

Victor Gurarie

William Lineberger

Related Institutions/Organizations

University of Colorado at Boulder