Seasonal Shift

According to a new study by many scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvord, the hottest day of the year has shifted to nearly two days earlier. Alexander R. Stine, a graduate student in UC Berkeley's Department of Earth and Planetary Science, was the first author of this reoport. Stine says that the cause of this shift in the cycle is most likely due to human activity. This seasonal shift which has occurred over land but not over water, researchers believe this is partially due to a particular pattern of winds that also has been changing over the same time period. This pattern of atmospheric circulation, is the most important wind pattern for controlling why one winter in the Northern Hemisphere is different from another. Stine and his co workers discovered using non-tropical data only, that while land temperatures in the 100-year period between 1850 and 1950 showed a simple pattern of variability, with the hottest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere around July 21, temperatures in the period 1954-2007 peaked 1.7 days earlier.

Forensic Article: CSI has an Pyschological Impact on Jurors?

A new psychological study from the University of Leicester aims to investigate how accurate people’s perceptions about forensic science are, where these beliefs come from, and how this forensic awareness may impact on jury decision making.
It will assess whether the jury system in the UK is influenced by the type of forensic-related programming potential jurors are exposed to, or whether their knowledge and understanding of forensic science through news media, literature or magazines has an impact on their courtroom decisions.
The study will investigate how jurors interpret forensic evidence in court - and how this impacts on their decision making.
Lisa Smith, from the Forensic Section of the University of Leicester School of Psychology, said: “In recent years the forensic science techniques available to police have become increasingly sophisticated and in some cases difficult to understand within the courtroom.
“The increased attention given to forensic science in both the news and fictional media has also raised awareness of these techniques in the general public.
“The aim of this research is to understand how potential jurors perceive and understand various forensic science techniques, in order to determine how their attitudes and expectations may impact on their decision making in a courtroom setting.”
Ms Smith added that jurors are faced with the very difficult task of evaluating many different types of evidence when reaching a final decision - which will ultimately change the lives of the defendants and victims involved in a criminal case.
“As the complexity of forensic evidence increases with recent advances in technology, it is important to determine how well jurors understand the value of the evidence.
“Forensic science is featured quite heavily in television programming and news media coverage, and this raises the public interest in forensic techniques. An important aspect of jury decision making is a juror's prior beliefs and knowledge, and this study aims to investigate how potential jurors' perceptions of forensic science impacts on their ability to evaluate different types of evidence.
“This research will improve our understanding of how potential jurors use their prior beliefs about forensic science to inform their decision making when evaluating different types of forensic evidence. This can ultimately contribute to improvements in the way evidence is presented and explained to juries to ensure effective decisions are reached in the courtroom.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924085158.htm

New forensic science program to help prosecute animal cruelty cases

Gainesville, Florida (15 January 2009) - The University of Florida announced today that it will partner with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or ASPCA, to form the first Veterinary Forensic Science Program.

The program will focus on teaching, research and application of forensic science in the investigation of crimes against animals.

Article taken from examiner.com.
Article link: http://www.examiner.com/x-2164-Orlando-Pet-Health-Examiner~y2009m1d15-Forensic-science-helps-in-animal-abuse-cases

Threat of Rising coasts

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/science/earth/17sea.html?_r=1&ref=science
According to a new report by the environmental protection agency, the rise in sea level is increasing making many of the sea aniamls and other habitats in the water start to disappear. According to this report sea level has increased from 2.2 milimeters to 4.4 milameters and the Middle Atlantic states are very vulernable from this.

This also could mean if the sea level keeps increasing by a major amount, the islands surrounding North Craolina will become in danger and could go underwater. The report states that by 2100, the sea level will rise two feet making many islands disappear. If people don't want this to occur then they should save the wetlands.

This article was very interesting to me, because it shows that if we don't start to figure out ways to stop the sea levels from rising then many people and species will die or go extinct.

Patents; In tense times, making ballistics forensics more accurate by putting tiny bar codes on bullets.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CEFD9103AF937A25753C1A9649C8B63&scp=6&sq=forensics&st=cse

Ever since Calvin Goddard’s use of the comparison microscope to analyze the various markings on bullets and bullet fragments, ballistics forensics has provided critical aid to the police. Yet what initially sounds like an easy task – identify the marks on a bullet – can take days for even the most experienced criminalists. The answer is simple – bar code the bullets.
Kansas City inventor, Ivan Grow, recently patented what he believes will revolutionize the forensics field of ballistics: a gun that will imprint an individual bar code on each bullet it fires. The inside of the barrel of each of Mr. Grow’s guns contain a bar code stamp. As the bullet is propelled through the barrel of the gun, it is engraved with the bar code.
The bar codes themselves, Mr. Grow says, will be located onto an existing database of the current gun registry run by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. That way, police will be able to take the various bullets they find at the scene of the crime and identify both the bullet the gun it came from in a much more simplistic manner than by simply studying the random marks and grooves of the projectile. The bar codes are also stamped onto the bullets at least several times before leaving the barrel, making it easier to identify the bullets even if they should fragment. While this may not solve every gun crime in America, it’s a start.

Pesticides Are In For It Now

Zurich chemists have developed a new method to detect pesticide residues on food. Renato Zenobi, Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry and his doctoral student Matthias Jecklin have developed a mass spectrometric method enabling pesticide residues in foodstuffs to be detected quickly. This could have many other applications besides detecting chemicals in food.
Although this method using mass spectrometry can analysis chemicals quickly and accurately, it cannot determine amount of the substance present.

It can also be used in forensic or medical purposes. For instance, this method could detect explosive material, toxins, human sweat or even drugs or diseases.

Computer Game 'Tetris' May Help Reduce Flashbacks To Traumatic Events

A new report out finds that playing ‘Tetris’ after traumatic events could reduce the flashbacks experienced in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to preliminary research by Oxford University psychologists. If this early-stage work continues to show promise, it could inform new clinical interventions for use immediately after trauma to prevent or lessen the flashbacks that are the hallmark symptom of PTSD. Existing treatments can only be provided once PTSD has become established.The group is now hoping to develop this approach further as a potential intervention to reduce the flashbacks experienced in PTSD, but they are keen to emphasise that these are only preliminary results. Dr Holmes also stresses that no conclusions can be drawn more generally for computer gaming and its effects.

ADHD effects boys more so than girls

http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/41340/Study_Finds_ADHD_Affects_Motor_Skills_of_Boys_More_Than_Girls.html

Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger institute came to the conclusion that guys with ADHD are more effected by the illness more so than girls. Due to the idea that a girl will mentally mature much before a guy will, a girl will always have more control with her actions even if she is diagnosed with ADHD. However, a guy with ADHD becomes incapable of controlling himself. It illustrates the difference between guys and girls. MRI images would be the evidence here that displays there is much more activity going on in a guys brain than that of a girls brain. MRI images that are highlighted with several highlighted colors means there is a lot of activity. I thought the article was somewhat self-explanatory because I also understood how the level of maturity in a guy doesn't match up with the maturity of a girl. Also, I know girls and guys who have this condition and I've seen for myself that guys will lose it and girls have more control. 

Guilt On Their Hands: Tiny 'Tags' Could Help To Solve And Deter Gun Crime

Recently, a team of chemists, engineers, management scientists, sociologists and nanotechnologists has worked under the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to develop a new method in ballistics tagging. Very small tags, known as “nanotags,” are coated onto gun cartridges and attach themselves to hands or gloves. Nanotags are useful because they remain on the skin or clothing of whoever handled the cartridges and are not easily removed. Furthermore, they also remain on the cartridge after firing which allows forensic scientists to link a weapon to a suspect. Normally, it is very difficult to find fingerprints on cartridges because they are very smooth and shiny. One of the team members explains, “The tags primarily consist of naturally-occurring pollen, a substance that evolution has provided with extraordinary adhesive properties.” This breakthrough is also much more cost effective because sufficient amounts of DNA is captured without damage.
The technology is said to be put into use within the year and hopefully the technique can be applied to other fields.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080801074732.htm

Sugar Addiction: Real??

We have all learned about the addicting qualities that the four groups of drugs possess, but in fact a new study shows that sugar addiction is very real. Professor Bart Hoebel and his team in the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute have been studying signs of sugar addiction in rats for years. Until now, the rats under study have met two of the three elements of addiction. They have demonstrated a behavioral pattern of increased intake and then showed signs of withdrawal. His current experiments captured craving and relapse to complete the picture. In experiments, the researchers have been able to induce signs of withdrawal in the lab animals by taking away their sugar supply. The rats' brain levels of dopamine dropped and, as a result, they exhibited anxiety as a sign of withdrawal. The rats' teeth chattered, and the creatures were unwilling to venture forth into the open arm of their maze, preferring to stay in a tunnel area. Although this isn't entirely conclusive for humans, researchers stated that it could be used to help people with eating disorders by adding sugar to a regular part of their diet.

Is Justice Blind?

One of the largest studies ever conducted in the UK was put in motion with almost 65,000 people involved. It tested whether the appearance of a defendant at trial would cause a jury to swing one way or another. Two groups were presented with identical physical evidence and an identical description of the crime, however one defendant looked like a typical criminal, with a broken nose, smaller eyes, and an unattractive physique, while the other looked angelic with blue eyes and a baby face. The study was intended to show whether the jury would find the more disheveled person guilty, or the baby faced defendant. The jury found that the more criminal appearing defendant was guilty more often than the baby faced one. This study is one of very few providing insight into the decision-making processes of a jury. The research suggests that justice might be short-sighted, if not blind.

International Database Creation

Ireland up until now has been without a national DNA database. Recently, Irish politicials have been working to establish legistlation to form a national databse for the containment of DNA samples. Ireland is one of the few countries in the European Union (along with Italy, which failed to pass the legistlation) without the legistlation for establishing and maintaining a national DNA database.

Fingerprints Provide Clues To More Than Just Identity

New technology has been able to help pull overlapping layers of fingerprints into individual fingerprints. With layers of trace evidence it is hard to see which print is the right for the person who committed the crime. R. Graham Cook led a team that is pulling each layer of finger prints from scenes that were overlapping. Finger prints can leave behind molecule compounds. Which by pulling the compounds Cook says it could be used to identify an individual. With this new technology in progress it might be easier finding the real criminal instead of putting someone who is innocent in jail.

Video Enhancement of Facial Images

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles.asp?pid=199

This article demonstrates and stresses the fact that facial images are crucial and some of the first key steps while solving a crime. Most of the time, facial images are caught on surveillance cameras, however, the images are not as nearly as clear as what they are hoped to be. Many problems often arise, such as the camera is not working properly, pointed at a bad angle, etc. Throughout the years, the advancement with video surveillance images and tools have become very useful for inspectors on a specific crime, generally robbery cases. Forensic artists can now view a film and try to produce a composite drawing that can potentially produce more leads on a case. Forensics artists can also see facial structures and replicate them on an easy pencil - drawn portrait of the suspect. Lighting and angle of a video camera are other aspects that can help or hinder in image capturing. A forensic artist can be an asset in recreating the facial image captured on videotape, as it is just one frame of a moving motion.
Some people may forget that the first drawing made by an artist are key to solving a crime. Such images can allow many important leads in a crime.

Recently, a pioneering scientist from Britain by the name of Dr. John Bond offered to take on an unsolved case from America.  The victim, Marianne Wilkinson, was 69 years old when she answered the door at 7:30 pm in her house in North Richland Hills, Texas on December 9, 2007.  Unfortunately, she was immediately shot three or four times, and the assailant fled.  Recently, investigators have come to believe that she was not the intended murder victim, and that the intended victim lived next door.  As a result, the murder case has made little progress, thus raising the need for outside help.  Dr. Bond has developed a scientific process by which fingerprints on bullets could be visualized, even if the bullet has been wiped clean, as he developed a technique that can detect wiped fingerprints on nearly all metals.  He has even been approached by military personnel in Afghanistan to discuss potential use of the technique to find prints on roadside bombs.  Recently, a gun was found that is believed to be the one that shot Marianne, for her murder is considered a case of a paid assassin making a mistake.  Thus, Dr. Bond has been brought in to try and identify the persons who last used  the gun, and try to bring Marianne Wilkinson's murderer to justice.