Identifying Fallen Soldiers & Human Remains with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tim McMahon, & Franklin Damann
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2024
- How do you identify human remains? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice explore DNA and the task to identify the remains of fallen soldiers with biomedical scientist Tim McMahon and forensic anthropologist Franklin Damann. What is the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency?
How do you collect and process DNA for identification? Learn about the Department of Defense’s mission to recover and identify remains from past wars from the Director of DNA operations Tim McMahon. How has 23andMe helped identify these fallen soldiers? You’ll learn about collecting DNA out of osteocytes, investigative genetic genealogy, and DNA magnets. What are other applications for DNA research? What are the main differences between nuclear and mitochondrial DNA? Is it really easier to extract ancient Neanderthal DNA than a more recent sample?
Next, we speak with Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s Deputy Laboratory Director, Franklin Damann. Find out how they process the remains aboard the USS Oklahoma. How do you sift through so many commingled bones? We discuss exhuming remains and what this project has done for the families of these missing soldiers. Is there any other valuable information learned from these identifications? What is the best environment for recovery? How big of a sample do you need to get enough DNA for identification?
How many missing and unidentified soldiers are there? How is artificial intelligence used to help identification? How do you identify 13,000 individual bones? What is the clavicle method? All that, plus, we explore the “CSI effect” and how projects like these get many scientists and world governments to collaborate.
Thanks to our Patrons Jon Scherer, Thibault Deckers, Jimmy Jam, Evan Cooper, Barnato, Justin Ross, James Nichols, Lori, Emilie Talles, and Roy Slettbakk for supporting us this week.
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Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
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0:00 - Introduction
1:48 - Part 1 w/ Dr. Tim McMahon
2:30 - Application of DNA in Forensics
5:33 - DNA Databases
7:54 - Identifying Bones With DNA
10:08 - Magnetizing DNA
12:20 - Leaders in DNA
19:01 - Mitochondrial DNA vs Nuclear DNA
20:52 - Neanderthal DNA
23:39 - Part 2 w/ Dr. Franklin Damann
24:17 - Repatriating Victims of Pearl Harbor
29:55 - Identifying Missing Soldiers
33:18 - Returning The Dead
35:48 - Best Environments for Preserving Bodies
38:21 - Best Material for Identification
40:38 - Brain Games
41:55 - Identification Processes
45:41 - The CSI Effect
46:26 - AI & Identification
53:18 - The Future of DNA Identification
57:47 - Closing Notes - Věda a technologie
No other comedic co-host asks such related and awesome questions that we are all thinking. This is why Chuck is the best!!!
Definitely, Chuck is all of us.
And all the completely off the rails comments none of us thought of😂😂 I agree, Chuck is awesome
And yet he isn't mentioned in the title, as if he's not part of the conversation. Shame :/
@@Romulusmap you’re right 😔
Chuck is awesome! Every time I watch Star Talk and I have a question about something Chuck literally asks that question to Neil as if he is reading my mind. These two are great together.
Families make life altering sacrifices and their loved one makes the ultimate sacrifice. They deserve answers. This is using technology to do good, how refreshing.
Interesting, my family was contacted in Canada by the US army last fall. They traced us as next of kin for a US army soldier, turned out he is relation. My father provided dna to help identify his remains from a mass grave in the Phillipines from WW2. Cool to learn the Identification process. Thank you for the awesome insight!!
They things we can discover with isotopes is amazing, way cooler than geneological DNA, it's how they found The Isdell Woman was born in southern Germany from strontium isotopes in her teeth
czcams.com/play/PLgRoK-eyLjol5-Mz2Yh_ffkCU50RHJ68t.html
I was also contacted and told I was related to one of the president's 😅 got a hold of my great grandfather's records and he has records from when things were handwritten generations past of brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles going all the way back TO the president that that email years ago had said! My parents and I are Canadian born and raised so that was cool to find out!
Incredible! A new piece of family history. Thanks for sharing your story!
@@RyanDavis-nr2gl Wow!!! Which President?
That’s beautiful!
The editor is upping their game. We a get a little preview in the beginning now
All due respect to your other comedic co-hosts but if it ain't Chuck, I don't want it 😂. Just to give my two cents, I'm an active duty army officer in the field of logistics (which encompasses mortuary affairs operations) and I had never heard of this until watching this episode. So, I do think it is safe to say that many people have not heard of it and kudos to y'all for shedding light on it. What an excellent mission!
The way Dr. Tim McMahon was so easily able to explain such advanced concepts in such simple terms REALLY shows you how deeply he understands what is happening in his department. I'm Canadian, but I'm glad that such a competent man is in such an important position, recovering the identities of fallen and missing soldiers!!
Hate to be ageist/glib, but I hope he's got a protege he's working on/with!! Haha
My daughter is a contractor for the DoD, working in Hawaii for the DPAA, identifying the remains of WWII soldiers in the pacific. She takes her job very seriously and she tries to attend the funerals of those she identifies, especially if there are no family.
As a Veteran I give your daughter a heartwarming Hand Salute for her work and actions.
@@webbtrekker534 same! Bravo Zulu 👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋
That's actually really amazing. What a heartwarming thought to know that someone worked so diligently, so many years later, to identify your remains after giving your life for country. To then attend your funeral and give thanks for your sacrifice, long after those who knew you have passed. /heartstrings
That is amazing.
"Yeah, I've been trying to go white my whole life." Chuck killed me with that one!
it’s a comfort to know there are people like your guests that are doing this work for our fallen veterans
This is one aspect of the military that definitely deserves a place in the sun. You cannot price the sense of closure their work brings to thousands of families. The govt's "no man left behind or forgotten" is such a noble endeavor.
Tim Mcmahon must be a teacher. He ELI5 after everything he says. I love it.
I know! He really nailed the explanations for the types of DNA.
Blimey I had to Google ELI5.
It Explained Like I'm 5. 🤦
I've never been so interested and so confused at the same time, love it
Me too lol
Thank you for sharing this episode gentlemen. It is so comforting to know that we are putting so much effort into bringing those lost in conflict and unknown then back to their kin.
There was an article in the print issue of the WSJ (Wknd Edition May 21/22) that focused on this topic. How forensics was able to ID a serial killer in the late '80s in Oregon via distant cousins. Using a unit of measurement called the centiMorgan (CM) invented by T.H.Morgan who won the Nobel based on his studies in 1933. Article goes about saying that your genetic code is really not that private because you share enough genetic code even out to your 5th cousins (20-85 CMs) where they can still identify you and confirm you are in the same family tree. Each person typically has 6800 CMs and you share 3400 CMs from each of your parents. So basically it gets halved as you move up the tree. However, since each person can have anywhere from 5000-15,000 fifth cousins, upwards of 1000 4th cousins and around 200 3rd cousins, testing can be done on a rather large population of seemingly random people. But they'll share enough identical DNA that a common ancestor is the only possible source. In this case, a 5th cousin and you would share the same set of great-great-great grandparents (who would have 200-340 of the same centiMorgans as you. Cool article and very timely for this episode!!
Since all DNA shows haplotypes which are essentially nested hierarchies beginning with all Human shared Ydna or MtDna than one can keep further deducing haplotypes to a more specific line, really each individual has they're own specific haplotype, and a family haplotype, and more and more extended, this is partially die to Founders Effect. So most western European males are R1B, which is a subset of R1 and R, which is related to Q of some Asians and Native Americans. L21 is predominant in western Europe and especially in Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, Brittany and areas correlating to "Atlantic Celts" and is more than likely from the Bell Beaker Culture, L21 is a major haplotype of R1B. But ALL human Ydna goes back to haplogroups of origin in Africa such as Yadam, L1085, P305, P108, etc as a nested hierarchy. So if you have a gap of an unknown person but you can find a higher haplogroup you hypothetically could generate random sequences based on that and one of the codes will be more simmilar to that individuals.
They things we can discover with isotopes is amazing, way cooler than geneological DNA, it's how they found The Isdell Woman was born in southern Germany from strontium isotopes in her teeth
czcams.com/play/PLgRoK-eyLjol5-Mz2Yh_ffkCU50RHJ68t.html
Thanks for sharing!
I think that killer was arrested in Maine which is where i’m from
My mind is blown.Also, Dr Tim Mcmohan's explanations are just sooo coool.I am a biotechnology student and I feel as if all that I learnt is being applied here and it all makes so much sense now! Amazing what humans can do with our knowledge base!!!
Just in case it wasn't clear. The bodies of the sailors on USS Arizona were left in place because the ship was sunk and remains were it was on Dec 7th. USS Oklahoma was also sunk in the attack, but was later patched up and re-floated. Obviously the bodies would have to be removed if the ship was to be repaired and put back into service. In the end, she sank as she was being towed to the west coast when a temporary repair failed and she foundered.
Every one who thinks war is the answer to conflict or considers fallen soldiers disposable should listen to this revealing episode. I loveStar Talk but this episode may be the best. Thank you NDT and CN!
Thank you StarTalk for presenting your guests biomedical scientist Tim McMahon and forensic anthropologist Franklin Damann. The discussion of their methods to help identify POW/MIA soldiers was fascinating! Both men possessed the ability to simplify complex procedures and concepts.
I've always loved looking up.. your hosting of Cosmos was my introduction to you Dr. Tyson...you make science so INTERESTING! I listen to ALL eps of Star Talk.. and listened to you read Astrophysics For People In A Hurry.. your mind is just amazing.. Keep up the great work! Chuck is awesome too..he's always asking great questions!!
Wow, I hadn't thought of the challenges 😳. The creativity of those who found new ways go accomplish this is brilliant and fascinating. That it also helps the living is even better.
I've seen plenty of amazing episodes of Star Talk but at the end of this episode I found myself clapping in appreciation of having been given access to knowing this field of work exists and the ppl behind it who are advancing it's cause. Absolutely beautiful!!
This was a fantastic educational experience for me. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it! :)
I love the progression of Startalk over the years!
We’re just getting started!
What a rewarding field that must be to work in.
This guy is great with the analogies that explain what he does!
EXCELENT PODCAST THEME!!👍👍
I love Neil's Lego Space Shuttle in the background! LOL
Wow. Super episode.
Glad you thought so! :)
I agree with Neil, a TV show would be amazing.
GOOD JOB NEIL YOU ARE TURNING A GREAT COMEDIAN INTO A SCIENCE GUY
Salute to the unknown soldier.
Always thank a veteran 🇺🇸👍
Another great informative Startalk episode!
Comedy + Science = Good
How fascinating; must be such a rewarding experience.
I love this show. Thanks yall
We need a Neil deGrasse Tyson for all sections of science especially on social media and CZcams and stuff
We also need a Chuck Nice for each one too because he's definitely smart and funny
This is fascinating, and families must be so touched.
Just finished watching your conversation with First guest good as always :)
What a great episode! Well done Star Talk!💚🖖
Our scouts just placed flags at a local cemetery. This included a plot where hundreds of GAR troops were laid to rest.
Cool theory about the finding the silver dollar ...
this is one the most interesting shows i have ever seen!
Hi Guys!! Awesome show!!
Hi Andrea! Thank you!!
Neil, good job with creating great videos and uploading them quickly.
Facts
Glad you enjoy them. More on the way!
This was a information powerhouse
16" in: I was there when they went from standard sockets to metric sockets as well.....
Fascinating !
This is awesome!
Where can I find audible lectures and discussions without money?
Good info
Any ETA on when we're gonna get back face-to-face shows?
Great topic! *Chuck* too funny!
a family member was on USS Oklahoma and is part of process of identification
It all came together in the end bro
Plus, it's glowing!
Tyson... the Barry White of science.
That... voice 👍
ha! 2 points to gryfindor. He's definitely always had smooth jazz radio host vibes.
@@IAMNIVERSE Totally.
Chuck, why did you question being the co-host for this show? You are an intelligent man and ask intelligent questions, that is why you got that email. You shouldn't doubt yourself.
the cold case task force are some of the best on the planet and using dna is awesome science.
They things we can discover with isotopes is amazing, way cooler than geneological DNA, it's how they found The Isdell Woman was born in southern Germany from strontium isotopes in her teeth
czcams.com/play/PLgRoK-eyLjol5-Mz2Yh_ffkCU50RHJ68t.html
Don't stop that show , I gonna give you three headphones
There are bodies on Everest that no one gave thoughts to as well
this brought tears and laughter to tears...nuff said🙏🙏🙏
One day a hope your job is not need but untell that day keep doing your amazing work.
16:19 Actually a 7/16” and an 11mm are so close (7/16” = 11.1125mm) you can get a real snug fit on a 7/16 bolt with an 11mm socket, but yeah there is a greater risk to round out a 11mm bolt with a 7/16 socket. A 10mm socket will never fit on a 7/16” bolt. He meant to say 3/8” bolt and 10mm socket.
19:20
The hard drive is unable to tell the computer what to do without BIOS first telling the hard drive what to do.
I wonder what the human body's BIOS would be?
My Brother worked at Scofield Barracks a quarter century ago. Lived in Pearl Harbor Dorms with the bullet holes on the facade, too. Hopefully before remains we're stored there.
This reminded me of that Johnny Bravo episode
Thanks
I don't know if this is in the comments yet, but speaking of forensics and soldiers. Paul Revere made the earliest dental ID. He made dentures, and was able to identify an unknown soldier's body because he recognized the guy's dentures.
I'd love to hear Neil sing some Barry White!
they say destruction breeds creation but so does most things
I love the show God bless you all 💖
I love all of this...but as a computer nerd lol he said battery for a computer when it's more appropriate to say power supply lol I know such a miniscule thing but some computers have to be plugged in so it's more accurate lmao but good stuff I love it 😀
Dude it's a battery. That's what we call a portable power supply. It's been a word for years.
The DPAA guy 100% is using his profession looking for alien origins. Did you catch that question he asked Neil?
I think when he said Hard-drive he meant CPU or maybe he meant Binary. I'm not exactly sure because the binary is the instruction and the CPU interprets and tells all other devices to do with that Binary. The hard drive is just where the products of this process is stored until it is needed again
This is a field I would love to study in college but don't know how to get started if anyone knows anything please let me know if I even need college or just on the job training??..
Science guys talking cars, is like car guys talking science 🤣
The use of genetics to formulate personalized drug therapies has to do with liver metabolism. It’s called pharmacogenomics. Many drugs are metabolized in our liver by certain enzymes and these enzymes have varying metabolizing ability amongst individuals based in genetics. Varying from ultra rapid to poor metabolizers. The alleles for these enzymes have polymorphisms detail how well an individual can metabolize a specific drug, thus altering dosages for recommended metabolizers.
Wait until this department gets something like - and, to be clear, I know JUST enough to know that I don't really know what I'm talking about - Neural Networks or Machine Learning type things.
You know, once they get a sophisticated enough computer program that IT can more effectively pour through the crazy range of data points and come up with effective suggestions than a human, giving these GENIUS anthropologists more effective targeting abilities
Astonished ro see how science helps to identify unknown soldiers. But what with those who died during WW1? At least 21 unk own Zmercan soldiers are buried in Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial, another 43 are mentionned on the wall in the chapel of that cemetary. Every now and than, farmers in that area find remains, artifacts of those American soldiers, evertime we try to identify the owner and if possible their family. But nothing mentioned during this interview. 🤔
Hace falta subtítulos
There are about fifteen hundred official Vietnamese MIA, and, obviously, the Department Of Defense is interested in getting a final resolution for those families.
For those American families that is... for tens of thousands of Vietnamese American children, they still have no resolution to where their fathers might be.
The Department of Defense seems less interested in finding answers for them - after all, fertilizing the native population has always been one of the perks of the military.
"Curious. Very curious."
Ohh boiii lets gooo ❤️❤️💯
I wonder if Citizen Science could be a useful resource for identification
I just searched for Chuck night comic on Twitter and got zero returns.
I still use imperial and metric tools
You all should watch the latest episode of Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Two veterans organizations I belong to have reported on two local WW II internment's that are the direct result of this organization efforts. One was a crewman of a bomber lost in the Ploesti Oil Field bombing raid in Romainia and one was a sailor from the Oklahoma. Both burials were to be done locally. Due to COVID I did not attend.
I thought the channel deals with issues related to astronomy.
Let the guest talk!
If an interested, relatively intelligent non-scientist has an idea not even yet an hypothesis and apparently not yet considered about, how is this idea best put forth so several real scientists may consider its validity? I ask this because I have one such notion.
Inside black holes is a firewall of light or photon energy because once light enters past a radius limit it can't escape. This firewall is a layer of energy. That's why it's termed firewall. Light goes in orbit inside this radius. It makes a lot of questions. How thick is this band of energy since some light moves slower because of environment. Also the wave property of light means that some light may be in gamma ray wavelengths and some light may be in long wavelengths. Most of this means to my mind that the inside of a black doesn't normally have a singularity object, (almost impossible to comprehend even by a mind that can comprehend our universe with several dimensions of multiverse), but instead, inside black holes are objects at different states of degeneracy/balance depending on the black hole objects' mass/density. I'm reviewing and correcting what I just wrote to make sure I said it right.
I'll assume that light actually has both wave and particle properties. The particles are a type of fermion called photon. Fermions are discrete spots of energy and are not actual objects, and there are different kinds of fermion such as electron, photon, gluon and others. Photons have a condition where they change in size even though they are not actual physical objects. Photons expand when outside energy is applied, and they expand at around light speed. (I know. Lots and lots of discussion just to this point are called for here, such as what kind and how much energy was applied to the fermions that become photons, and how that relates to the wave properties of light.)
The light speed expanding photon travels outward against the huge gravity of the black hole, and slowed not by velocity, but by wavelength to such an amount to past the longest wavelengths any equipment known could measure or detect. The most longest wavelength being flat with no sin nor cosin measurement in any coordinate. These flat wavelengths of photon build up at the radius past which they can't go. Thus the firewall.
Meantime, in the center of the BH is an actual object likely spinning so fast its radial velocity is, well, do we know its maximum RV? And that radius may change over our time because raining down on it is the matter the BH consumes, which is entering from a spinning at near light speed condition.
+++
Okay, that was describing the black holes we detect in our galaxy and in other galaxies. You do see how this also describes the universe we are in I think. Except in the case of our universe, the object in the center reached a density of ZERO for what we may call the briefest of an instant, and that was an actual immediately before BH theorists begin measuring time in 10^-37ths of a second, and much tinier time quantities. Described like this, yes, a singularity may exist, but only for an amount of time so close to zero time that it WAS zero amount of time. Included was all the mass/energy of our universe.
This begs the question that, if our universe behaves like a BH that reached some such critical mass/density degeneracy that a big bang became the new degeneracy for this Universe Mass Black Hole, then what would the possible description be for it without the natural bias we have as denizens of this? How would it be predicted to behave, especially after correcting my poor descriptions so far?
Could a corrected version of this be used as a guide to make a better model of our universe, in which dark energy and dark matter might be accounted for? For one suggested example that requires what we might call actual eternity, the actual forever in which our universe expands and contracts WITHIN an actually infinite greater space; wherein there exists an actual infinite number of Black Hole universes, each expanding and contracting. These may or may not have the boundaries of a black hole. We don't know if our universe is so bounded or not.
Some of this has been suggested decades ago as the steady state theory, even put into the grade school science books I read while in 4th grade (1964-1965). But considered in this century in view of what we know and don't know about DE and DM, some theoretical astrophysicist might create models that can predict universes to have dark matter and dark energy. Such things might exist in the multiverse that our universe is in, but behave differently than familiar energy and matter, and perhaps because the infinite and eternal multiverse may in turn possibly exist in a much larger UltimaUniverse^3, and exists because it is would be measured with more dimensions.
So far in my question there is no spacey airheadedness, and no superstition mentioned. But, maybe decades after this is solved it might be considered whether there is some order to these levels of universe nesting. Such as, could this be in such an order that might be related to our submicroscopic chemistry? Naw, please disregard this paragraph. It involves a question that could only be framed by humans after, (or if), we evolve better brains and social behavior. But still the greater question remains, how could anything at all exist, even vacuum, even length, even direction, even time? Leave these things out because for now they are a distraction.
Well, Dr. Tyson, I hope you receive these questions and think about addressing them. I think they reflect what the average interested might want to know.
AI Etch a Sketch. Cool
Y’all Left 100k’s of men behind! :)
The phrase IS "going gray", or even silver. But, that's not what happens for everyone. It's weird that acknowledging a color (or lack thereof) is so charged. We need to do better.
Great... But à little slow.
I’ll still meet, need to be contacted though.
Saving Private Ryan's DNA?
Good one!
Is Tim Jay Lenos brother? 🤔
Encino Man would like a word.