The World's Premier Home Paternity Testing Service

This week brings an interesting piece of news regarding doggie DNA testing. A town just east of Tel Aviv, Israel, is planning to use DNA testing to fight the problem of dog poop in public places. According to a news report, the city of Petah Tikva is requesting community residents to stop by and register their dog’s DNA sample with the municipal vet.

In return, dog owners who clean up and deposit their dog’s poop at designated containers will be rewarded with dog food coupons and toys for their pets after DNA testing has identified the owner. Those who do not clean up, and whose samples are matched to the registry, maybe subject to a municipal fine.

The plan, which is undergoing a 6-month trial, is currently voluntary and has received positive feedback from pet-owners so far, who in general want a clean neighborhood. If the trial succeeds, the city plans to make dog DNA registration mandatory.

Eye on DNA this week reported that Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is among an elite group of people whose digitized DNA is being sent off into space for the project, Operation Immortality.

Conceived by Richard Garriot, whose claim to fame is creating the Tabula Rasa video game, the goal for the project is to “save a history of humanity’s greatest achievements, digitized human DNA, and personal messages from people all over the world.” This “saved game” is to be delivered and stored on the International Space Station on October 12 by Garriot himself.

Also sending in their digitized DNA are Silicon Valley celebrities Kevin Rose, creator of the social-bookmarking website Digg, Robert Scoble, one of the world’s most popular tech bloggers and Tim Draper, founder of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

A New Scientist article reports on a study suggesting moms’ and dads’ facial features may influence a person’s choice for their mate.

Women tend to date guys that look like their fathers, but men tend to be attracted to women that look like their mothers. The Hungarian biologist Tamas Bereczkei observed 67 long-term couples and their parents, taking measurements of facial features such as the face length to width ratio, as well as nose and mouth dimensions.

According to the study’s results, the face of a woman’s boyfriend more closely resembles her father’s than the faces of other males in the study, particularly in measurements for features closer to the center of the face. Men, on the other hand, dated women whose lower facial features (jaw and lip area) tended to match those of their mothers.

Whether or not this is a function of genetics or environment (for example, if this phenomenon is observed in families with adopted children) is a question not addressed by the article, and a possibility for future study. Regardless, the findings of the study shows another reason for strong family resemblances.