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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
What makes you think "dog" and "human" are the only two possible answers?
Anyway, there are some experts in that google result who will identify it for you. You might also contact the zoology department of your local university.
* DogPile ID out of UC Davis
* PooPrints
The dog poop DNA firms seem like a good bet.
That vet tech is an idiot. A basic DNA test is all you need. Whether you're willing to shell out the money for that, well, I guess that depends on how committed you are to being an ace investigative reporter.
@12 and @16, thanks. I'm looking into these...
They mentioned another test for $700 that would "get closer to the mark" but my office wouldn't pay for it and I certainly won't.
WHY IS THIS SO HARD?
Jesus. What the fuck is going on over there, Cienna?
Who, or what, said shit belongs to is the least of your worries. I'd say finding a freezer shit is a loud wake up call to seriously analyze the people you hang out with and your life in general. I'd hate to imagine where it goes from here. Vomit in the crisper?
Forward 3 months later, and they are moving out. Apartment is cleaned, power is disconnected, and life is good. Danger lurks, however, in the form of a forgotten tinfoil package in the back of the freezer. Our hero has to return to the apartment to collect the last of his belongings and notices a strange odor permeating his former living space....
Don't wind up like this guy. Keep that tied both in your freezer and in your thoughts at all times.
The best bet is probably a biology student. Any chance one of the Unpaid Interns is rounding out science credits?
@32, THAT IS A GREAT IDEA. Thanks, mom!
The instant you determine there is a turd in your freezer, it becomes your former freezer, which contained things you immediately threw away.
Any Seattle-area biology grad students out there want to help me out? I'll buy you dinner! And drinks! Just shoot me an email: cmadrid@thestranger.com
* Even you can't identify the mystery shit, you still might be able to determine if dogs can differentiate between dog shit and human shit. That should be worth an Ig Nobel Prize at least.
My primary concern, and it's kind of a big one, is that the sample will be contaminated with untold quantities of human DNA from handling. You'd probably have to give me a still-frozen, large hunk of turd, and then I'd could slice it and use an interior portion for the DNA sample. I doubt the bag you used to collect it was DNA free. I can't think of a good way to control for false positives for human DNA in this circumstance. Hm.
My bibliographic search skills are rusty and my access is limited, but here's a downloadable paper that might interest some of you. Excerpt:
This is a brilliant question.
Since it is excretion, it contains not only all the DNA of the pooper, but everything that the pooper might have eaten!
Hence, a dog that licked his master's hand would have human DNA. But perhaps a human, living with a dog, and getting occasional dander or hair in the food would show the opposite.
Then mix in all the various other DNAs from what both dogs and man might eat and it's complicated. Labs don't even like to deal with samples once the number of people to be identified gets above a certain limit. Poop could have DNA from anywhere, of any animal or plant type, stored up over days, maybe longer!
If you really think you could/want to do this, give me a call: 206-323-7101. I will give you the specifics of how I came to possess the turd and we can discuss how I can best compensate you for your time.
Of course, without positive control sample of human shit and dog shit @41's PCR is still just a PCR guess.
You left out the last step: throw the microwave in the garbage.
Yeah, I would definitely include human DNA as a control on the PCR, and maybe extract DNA from my own dog via cheek swab as a canine control. It's tempting to use dog poo as a control, but I worry about cross-contamination between the samples during processing. Stool can be so messy.
While I was BLASTing a few of the human primer sets I have against the canine genome I came across a couple of regions that could produce a different sized amplicon in dogs, meaning that I might be able to positively identify both with one set of primers.
So...I almost stepped in a large pile of what I'm pretty sure was messy human feces on my way home from work. And it reminded me of you!
With love,
Artbasketsara
P.S. This is all true and I'm pretty sure the smell test was enough to confirm it's origins. Have you ruled out the work microwave idea?
Maybe you have to poop! :-)
oh, and GROSS.
How do you know when it was laid and not by what?
http://www.qiagen.com/Products/Catalog/S…
The QIAamp DNA Stool Mini Kit provides silica membrane-based purification of up to 30 μg genomic, bacterial, viral, and parasite DNA from fresh or frozen human stool or other sample types with high concentrations of PCR inhibitors.
unfreeze it and put it in front of a dog, if he eats it its human shit...
(make sure its a fully grown dog though, puppies will eat everything)