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Well this is interesting

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jack-the-ripper-was-polish-immigrant-called-aaron-kosminski-new-book-claims-9716805.html

http://metro.co.uk/2014/09/07/identity-of-jack-the-ripper-finally-revealed-using-cutting-edge-technology-of-course-4859504/

Not sure how reliable or trustworthy these websites are, just saw it on my facebook.

The Independent is a UK newspaper while Metro is a newspaper that is freely distributed in public transport of several countries.
In any case, looks reliable enough.

To be honest, I fail to see why they are doing this. Those murders are very, very long ago, all possible suspects long dead. It would be better if researchers focused on solving murders from the present day.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Independent is a UK newspaper while Metro is a newspaper that is freely distributed in public transport of several countries.
In any case, looks reliable enough.

To be honest, I fail to see why they are doing this. Those murders are very, very long ago, all possible suspects long dead. It would be better if researchers focused on solving murders from the present day.

The Metro is owned and published by the same company that publishes The Daily Mail, the only other paper I've seen this story in.

I can't find it in the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, BBC, Sky... The Independent is the only noteworthy paper there, but that only makes me more sceptical.

Jack the Ripper is famous because he was never caught and his crimes ended without the police catching him. There is almost a mythology surrounding the crimes; however I suspect that this might be a case of more trying to push a book to be sold than anything else.

There have been a good few theories and claims over the years and whilst this method uses science I have to wonder how accurate it will be considering that the item in question has been poorly stored over many decades (by forensic standards) and also the rape and murder need not be the only reason for the DNA to be upon it.

Also I can't find the quote, but I seem to recall that the scientific study in question hasn't been peer reviewed; which suggests that it might have problems or the findings could be shakey.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Independent is a UK newspaper while Metro is a newspaper that is freely distributed in public transport of several countries.
In any case, looks reliable enough.

To be honest, I fail to see why they are doing this. Those murders are very, very long ago, all possible suspects long dead. It would be better if researchers focused on solving murders from the present day.

Jack the Ripper case is just one of those things that has Fascinated people for decades. I'm a member of the Whitechapel society and have been interested in the Jack the Ripper murders for the longest time, it's really no different than being interested in any other part of history or mystery.

Everyone has their own fascination with something.

But if you are looking for a practical reason for this, I'm not sure, I am not an expert in DNA analyst or solving murders. Perhaps someone can shed light with it's importance with the techniques used can be applies in other areas historical events or otherwise.

Well.....

 Overread wrote:
Jack the Ripper is famous because he was never caught and his crimes ended without the police catching him. There is almost a mythology surrounding the crimes; however I suspect that this might be a case of more trying to push a book to be sold than anything else.

That seems to happen a lot.

A few years ago something was done with the Titanic and it's ship rudders and steering system asking the question if the ship sank because someone turned the helm the wrong way.

Headline sparked a lot of interest offering nothing new.

But probably sold a lot of books.

Have the findings passed peer review and been published in an academic journal?

Theres a clear question over authenticity of sample material and risk of contamination. Also, I don't follow what they've matched against to get an identity.

1) Neither source gives details as to the methods used- what areas of DNA were studied?

2) Claim of 99% match- This is, for the whole genome, about the average match with a chimp. Given that after quite a few years of genomic dilution, the amount of the rippers DNA contained in any one of his descendants should be a fraction of his whole genome, this claim makes me extremely skeptical that their methods are actually testing anything useful. If they had said something along the lines of "99% match of Y-chromosome DNA, and several other marker sites matching the Rippers DNA to an expected level in a direct male-line descendent", I would be less skeptical.

3) Sample size of one- this is bad. As I mentioned previously, the amount of the Rippers DNA should be extremely diluted. I would argue that a 99% match of useful areas of the genome would probably indicate that the man was not the Ripper, as the odds of a descendant having 99% similar DNA to their Great-Great Grandfather is extremely slim.

4) It is correllation, not causation. If the DNA does match (lets assume that the articles are simply a dumbed-down version of the methods, which generally happens), all that we know is that the suspect would have interacted with the victim in a manner which caused DNA contamination. this does not indicate who the Ripper was.

Any match will be based around a set of genetic markers not the entire genome, in raw code they are a tiny fraction of the genome. Each of the markers used for human fingerprinting can be very diverse, so they only use about ten different ones. The odds of any mark from two entirely different samples matching is low, but all ten a near impossibility.

The 99% similarity to a chimp is not relevant here, we're about 50% similar to a banana. Much DNA is similar in function because were all made of cells that undergo similar metabolic functions. When a 99% match between people is declared, it has to refer to a tiny subset of specific tested regions that are known to be highly diverse among humans. Forensic testing isn't done genome wide.

The Jack the Ripper case has been solved now how many times? If it isn't corroborated by others it will be just another theory.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Any match will be based around a set of genetic markers not the entire genome, in raw code they are a tiny fraction of the genome. Each of the markers used for human fingerprinting can be very diverse, so they only use about ten different ones. The odds of any mark from two entirely different samples matching is low, but all ten a near impossibility.

The 99% similarity to a chimp is not relevant here, we're about 50% similar to a banana. Much DNA is similar in function because were all made of cells that undergo similar metabolic functions. When a 99% match between people is declared, it has to refer to a tiny subset of specific tested regions that are known to be highly diverse among humans. Forensic testing isn't done genome wide.

The question is, after 4+ generations, how are they claiming to have a 99% match? If they are using the proper gene sequences, the % similarity between the genomes should be much reduced, about 6%. What are they claiming a 99% match to?

So they find semen on the shawl of a prostitute and conclude that no it MUST belong to her killer and not one of her johns?

Sining wrote:
So they find semen on the shawl of a prostitute and conclude that no it MUST belong to her killer and not one of her johns?

Hence the general skepticism.

It's worth noting that this so-called expert is also releasing a book on Jack in a few days...

Also, everyone knows that the murders stopped because Jack the Ripper was abducted by Vorlons in penance for his crimes. Duh.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The Jack the Ripper case has been solved now how many times?

And I'm sure it will continue to be solved many more times in the years to come.

I thought it was definitiely determined that Jack was taken by the Vorlons to help with their "candidate background testing" for a certain conflict between say the the forces of light and darkness?

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Any match will be based around a set of genetic markers not the entire genome, in raw code they are a tiny fraction of the genome. Each of the markers used for human fingerprinting can be very diverse, so they only use about ten different ones. The odds of any mark from two entirely different samples matching is low, but all ten a near impossibility.

The 99% similarity to a chimp is not relevant here, we're about 50% similar to a banana. Much DNA is similar in function because were all made of cells that undergo similar metabolic functions. When a 99% match between people is declared, it has to refer to a tiny subset of specific tested regions that are known to be highly diverse among humans. Forensic testing isn't done genome wide.

The question is, after 4+ generations, how are they claiming to have a 99% match? If they are using the proper gene sequences, the % similarity between the genomes should be much reduced, about 6%. What are they claiming a 99% match to?

Mitochondrial DNA. Inherited from your mother (it rides the X chromosome) and virtually unchanging down the generations.

squidhills wrote:

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Any match will be based around a set of genetic markers not the entire genome, in raw code they are a tiny fraction of the genome. Each of the markers used for human fingerprinting can be very diverse, so they only use about ten different ones. The odds of any mark from two entirely different samples matching is low, but all ten a near impossibility.

The 99% similarity to a chimp is not relevant here, we're about 50% similar to a banana. Much DNA is similar in function because were all made of cells that undergo similar metabolic functions. When a 99% match between people is declared, it has to refer to a tiny subset of specific tested regions that are known to be highly diverse among humans. Forensic testing isn't done genome wide.

The question is, after 4+ generations, how are they claiming to have a 99% match? If they are using the proper gene sequences, the % similarity between the genomes should be much reduced, about 6%. What are they claiming a 99% match to?

Mitochondrial DNA. Inherited from your mother (it rides the X chromosome) and virtually unchanging down the generations.

Hmmm... that would work. If it was a direct, female-line descendant of the guys mother. Would be interested to see a geneology (throw in one male generation and BAM no case). Mitochondiral DNA is unrelated to the X-Chromosome. It is stored in the mitochondria (hence the name), and is inherited via the egg (hence why it is female line only).

Has it ever really been established beyond a reasonable doubt that 'Jack the Ripper' was a single individual as opposed to a series of unrelated murders that where connected via sheer speculation and newspaper hysteria?

Some are definitely linked, but at the time and today there are some attributed that simply do not fit, but they are included depending on how overly enthusiastic the author is.

I'd like to know how they found descendants to match with the DNA sample. They either had descendants in mind or they sampled a huge number of people. Clearly there wasn't a mass sampling of the population so I'm confused how they went about finding people to test to find a match to the sample taken from the blanket.

 gorgon wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The Jack the Ripper case has been solved now how many times?

And I'm sure it will continue to be solved many more times in the years to come.

About as many times as Voyager has left the solar system...

 kronk wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The Jack the Ripper case has been solved now how many times?

And I'm sure it will continue to be solved many more times in the years to come.

About as many times as Voyager has left the solar system...

Except she/he came back eventually.......

 streamdragon wrote:
It's worth noting that this so-called expert is also releasing a book on Jack in a few days...

Also, everyone knows that the murders stopped because Jack the Ripper was abducted by Vorlons in penance for his crimes. Duh.

I thought he got eaten by the lizard lady.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Some are definitely linked, but at the time and today there are some attributed that simply do not fit, but they are included depending on how overly enthusiastic the author is.

I'd like to know how they found descendants to match with the DNA sample. They either had descendants in mind or they sampled a huge number of people. Clearly there wasn't a mass sampling of the population so I'm confused how they went about finding people to test to find a match to the sample taken from the blanket.

A possible method would be to look for direct female-line relatives of then-suspects. Then you could do the Mitochondrial DNA thing on them, and hope for a match.

I've never heard of anyone having a pet theory, going off and doing some scientific study, only to have the findings completely reject their theory. For some reason their theory seems to always confirm what they thought all along.

The day someone announces that they thought some guy was the Ripper, but their amazing new DNA technique said it was actually some other unknown person, well then maybe I'll start paying attention to this stuff.