New Shroud Test Looks Like a Win For Sanity at the Moment

[semiopen]

Thanks for that comment on AB Ulan.

If I was the architect of the Shroud, my first impulse would be to use real blood. Of course, that decision could be superseded by technical/design considerations.

I mixed up Victor and Nancy Tryon in a previous post, when I said "Vicky is a piece of work" - should have said Nancy.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -9,00.html

This is the famous Time article about the DNA research which is behind a paywall now (like someone would pay to see old Time articles).

Of the tests, Tryon says, "All I can tell you is that DNA contamination is present and that the DNA belonged either to a human or another higher primate. I have no idea who or where the DNA signal came from, nor how long it's been there." It is, he says, not necessarily the remains of blood. "Everyone who has ever touched the shroud or cried over the shroud has left a potential DNA signal there." Tryon quit the project soon after his tests. "I saw it as a multidisciplinary project involving archaeology, physiology and other fields. But I came to believe there was another agenda present too. It was my first encounter with zealotry in science.

It's difficult to imagine a Chimpanzee handling the shroud, but more interestingly he was unable to identify blood. I think DNA analysis still is unable to identify it. As a layman, I think that's fascinating.

Nancy was identified as a Dr. in some reports of the research (presumably by shroudies). Being a technician, she apparently had more time to read the bible, etc. I think the link below is Nancy's take on the research.

http://creationevolutiondesign.blogspot ... ns-on.html

University of Texas' Center for Advanced DNA Technologies at San Antonio, Texas. There the laboratory director, Dr Victor Tryon, and his technician wife, Nancy Mitchell Tryon, quickly established that the sample was human blood of the AB group, just as Baima-Bollone had before them. They also determined that it had both X and Y chromosomes, indicating that the individual from whom it came was male.

It would be interesting to see how the Tryons are doing as a family all these years later.

As the DNA fragments are presumably from many different people, the male/female issue has no meaning. It's not simple to differentiate male and female blood -

http://sydney.edu.au/science/biology/le ... nder.shtml

I don't see how this could have been determined by the blood guys. Assuming real blood was used, as the architect, I might consider using female menstrual blood, but could see abandoning that idea for many reasons.

[Ulan]

It's difficult to imagine a Chimpanzee handling the shroud, but more interestingly he was unable to identify blood. I think DNA analysis still is unable to identify it. As a layman, I think that's fascinating.

He tried to explain that. DNA can have many different sources. He mentioned spittle and tears from worshipers as examples. I don't think you would use DNA to identify blood (note that I don't mean distinction between individuals, but distinguishing blood from other substances). One possible approach would be to look at the ratio of mitochondrial DNA to nuclear DNA, as red blood cells don't contain nuclei (you still have nuclear DNA from white blood cells), but you also have slanted ratios in some other tissues.

Getting a result of AB for blood type is disheartening in some sense. It's relatively rare (4% in the US for example, 8% in Israel), but it's the result you would get if hundreds of people with blood type 0, A, B and AB touched the shroud.

[davidlau17]

Personally I doubt the Shroud's authenticity, though all signs point to it being a point of debate for quite some time. Nevertheless, out of morbid curiousity and a bit of boredom, I put together a facemorph using a digital facial reconstruction by Ray Downing, Agemian’s 1935 'Face of Christ' painting based on the Shroud, and the negative image of the face on the shroud itself. The morph resulted in this:

[DCHindley]

Personally I doubt the Shroud's authenticity, though all signs point to it being a point of debate for quite some time. Nevertheless, out of morbid curiousity and a bit of boredom, I put together a facemorph using a digital facial reconstruction by Ray Downing, Agemian’s 1935 'Face of Christ' painting based on the Shroud, and the negative image of the face on the shroud itself. The morph resulted in this:

OMG! If I'm not mistaken, that is David Koresh of Branch Davidian fame!



If you are wondering about eye color, David K was surely wearing contacts (looks more Persian that way).