Current Event
Natalia Kaminski
Caught by a hair: Quick, new identification of hair may help crime fighters
Queen’s professor Diane Beauchemin and student Lily Huang have recently developed a cutting-edge technique for identifying human hair. Their test consists of grinding the hair, burning it, and analyzing the vapor that is produced from it. This test takes 85 seconds, which is much quicker than other DNA analysis tests that are being used by law enforcement today. Although blood samples are mainly used to identify gender and ethnicity, blood can easily be contaminated and can deteriorate rather quickly. Hair is very stable and contains evidence of diet, ethnicity, gender, and the environment of working conditions of a person. Study samples so far have proven a 100 percent success rate, including trials with dyed hair.
This technique could be very beneficial to forensic science if law enforcement starts encorporating it into their investigations because it is efficient and accurate. 85 seconds is signficantly less time to determine identity, and time is precious in criminal investigations. If their tests have proven 100 percent success rates, than forensic science can definitely be revolutionized. The discovery of new forensic techniques is important because there are many errors that have been made in criminal investigations, and these errors can result in throwing an innocent man or woman in jail. The more forensic scientists can improve in their tests, the more justice and accuracy they will bring to law enforcement system.
The author did a good job of making the article clear and concise. The article was not long because the author simply summarized the new technique for identifying hair and gave a quick explanation of how it is more efficient than sampling blood for human identification. I understand that the the article’s length was a result of the technique being relatively new, and it has not yet been used in a real investigation.
Craig, Anne. "Caught by a Hair: Quick, New Identification of Hair May Help Crime Fighters." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.
9 comments:
Natalia’s review was well said. She starts the review off with introducing the scientists and what they have achieved. She then states that the test the two scientists came up with is actually faster than the one current law enforcement is using. She later explains to the audience how even though blood samples can be used for certain things, hair samples should be used since they are more stable and harder to contaminate along with how if this test that they have created works 100%, “forensic science can definitely be revolutionized.”
One thing that Natalia could have added was the information about Dr. Beauchemin;s goal. This goal is to soon be able to pinpoint where exactly a hair sample is from. If this was possibly, forensic science could evolve into something greater than it already is. Another thing Natalia could have added was how Lily (the student) got involved in this type of field.
I chose Natalia’s review because the topic she chose seemed like a brand new discovery for the field of science. She did a very good job keeping the reader interested.
Natalia did a great job summarizing this article. Given how short the article was she really simplified how impressive and accurate this new technique is. She also does a great job describing the scientists achievements to this point in their careers. The fact that it only takes 85 seconds to analyze is extremely impressive and could change the entire field of forensic science. As well as how law enforcement is going to be able to have 100% accuracy with this technique.
My one issue with her recap of the article is the lack of information on Dr. Beauchemin's reasoning for using hair samples. Specifically how her and her student Lily discovered the effectiveness of hair sampling. Another thing Natalia could have gone into more was the flaws that blood samples have when trying to accurately determine an individual.
Overall, the premise of the article is extremely interesting and the thought that an individual can be 100% identified through their hair.
I thought that Natalia’s review was very well done. In her summary paragraph I thought she did a great job at thoroughly outlining the key details of the article. I did not have any questions about the article after reading her review, which shows the great extent to which she covered the article. Secondly, I thought that Natalia did a great job at providing reason to the article, when she stated the practicality of imposing such an unfamiliar concept upon the forensic world. The fact that she discussed the efficiency of identifying human hair rather than identifying DNA samples truly expresses the point of the article, and helps the reader understand the concept better. Finally, I thought Natalia did a great job providing statistical data to back up her belief that identifying human hair is a more efficient process than identifying human DNA. The fact that she stated there has been a 100 percent success rate thus fair with this new concept makes it all the more convincing, and makes the article easier to understand.
While Natalia did a great job at summarizing and discussing her article, her review could have read a little bit better with grammar corrections. There were few grammar errors but overall fixing those few errors could help the review read better overall. Secondly, I thought that Natalia could have more clearly suggested improvements for the article she read. She did a great job expressing the weaknesses of the article, but never actually suggested how the authors of the article could improve it.
After reading Natalia’s review I learned a lot about the different ways in which one could be identified, and the efficiency of using certain methods of identification. I chose to read Natalia’s review because her article seemed to be of a very interesting idea, which, due to it’s practicality, could be an idea imposed sometime soon upon the world of forensic science. Overall, Natalia did a great job with her article review by constantly keeping the reader interested with numerous facts and opinions, and did a great job at summarizing a completely unfamiliar concept.
This article was very interesting as I have never heard of this kind of test before. The process of grinding, burning, and testing the vapor of the hair is very interesting to me. I wonder why this technique has not been employed before in forensic investigations because the article states that it is 100% accurate. I wonder if the test is truly 100% accurate because that would be revolutionary to forensic investigations of it is.
Natalia's use of descriptive words within her writing and the constant facts combined with options keep the reader truly engaged thought the article. The article was very to the point and just laid the facts down with I thought was very impressive.
The only thing I would suggest is to possible have done further research about the article because the article chosen by Natalia was quite concise. Overall I greatly enjoyed reading this article and I would love to learn more about this technique
I liked the way she presented how dire expediency is to the police investigation. As with the case of a missing person, I believe that the first twenty-four hours are very important to an investigation. I think the faster one can discover (important, accurate) information, the faster a crime can be solved (if it can be solved). This development cuts the turn-around time for hair analysis significantly. I also enjoyed how she related this situation to the incarceration of the innocent. I believe that it is a travesty that there are innocent men and women in jail and the process to release them or to find them not guilty takes quite a while. If this procedure can reunite them with their families more quickly, I am all for it. Lastly, I liked the organization of the summary. The presentation order was this: what was developed; how it works; why it is beneficial and what its findings will produce. Very nice.
I wish she had chosen a lengthier piece. While there is interesting information in this rather short article, I crave facts and want to have more knowledge on this subject. I have so many unanswered questions. How is the vapor analyzed? Is this test for identifying a body or identifying a suspect? Is this analysis done to determine whether a hair is of human origin? If she did not want to pick a longer article, I think maybe she should have done more research into this topic. Maybe she could have found out what information is available presently from the current hair analysis methods. What other information is available from this new technique?
She wrote that there was a 100% success rate. I confirmed this with the article. I am impressed that the analyses are never wrong. This test even works on hair that has been dyed. If this test can be made mobile, crime scene investigators might have it in their kits and may be able to identify a human hair almost immediately (less than a minute and a half). This is another amazing weapon in the battle against crime.
I chose this article because I have a lot of hair and I already knew that using hair was a good test for drugs but I never knew so much could be found from analyzing it. From now on, I will be more careful about where my hair lands. I might even cut it. I probably have two years of information up there.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140529142542.htm
Craig, Anne. "Caught by a Hair: Quick, New Identification of Hair May Help Crime Fighters." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.
I read the article “Caught by a Hair: Quick, New Identification of Hair May Help Crime Fighters”. I liked how in the critique, Natalia started off with a sentence that makes me want to find out what the rest of the article is about. I want to know what kind of new tech was discovered and the ways it could help solve crime. I like the way the summary is short and easy to follow and got to the main points. I liked how Natalia stated reasons why this test would be better than blood tests. It was helpful how the article talked about how the test worked though they definitely could have gotten more in depth on that, and how Dr. Beauchemin and his student discovered it. The article could have used more quotes to give us a better understanding of the test. Although the article does tell us that there is a 100 percent success rate, it could have talked about the number of tests that were done and how they were done in detail. Otherwise than that, it was an extremely interesting article and this new test could benefit forensic science greatly.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140529142542.htm
I read the article and Natalia’s review of “Caught by a Hair: Quick, New Identification of Hair May Help Crime Fighters.” I really liked the idea of this article because it is interesting and has the ability to change crime investigations. The author of the review did a good job explaining the process of hair identification and gave facts about the importance and accuracy of it. I also liked how Natalia stated the difference this new technology would make on the crime world today and how quick it was obtaining results. Lastly, I really liked how clear the author was reviewing this article, I really understood what she was saying which made me interested in this topic.
One thing the author of this review could improve would be to add more information on the topic and this new discovery by possibly finding information from an outside source. This would have been more helpful in the explanation. Also, Natalia did not state how the article could be improved. She did very well explaining everything else in the article but did not criticize it. Especially because the article was so short, there were many opportunities for criticism and suggested improvements.
I learned a lot from reading this article and the information I learned changed the way I thought of crime investigations. The fact that they can retrieve information about a person in 85 seconds boggles me and makes me wonder what the future of crime investigations will hold. It also amazed me that this process of hair identification has a 100 percent success rate, and this can really change future investigations. Lastly, I was surprised by how much about a person can be found when investigating hair. This includes diet, ethnicity, gender, and the environment of working conditions of a person. It still astounds me how important this technique of retrieving information will be in future forensic investigations- it will decrease the amount of time spent on finding results. Overall, this article interested me and I was very pleased with the review.
I thought that is article was well written and summarized. I found this article to be interesting. I was captivated when I learned that this recently new technique for identifying human hair takes only 85 seconds, and what’s even better is that study samples have proven that this technique is 100% accurate. It was also interesting to find out that it works on dyed hair as well. I was astonished to discover that hair can contain evidence of diet. I wonder how that works. I believe that is new technique is actually better than blood samples, since blood can be easily contaminated. It’s also a faster way to identify people, which can help solve many criminal investigations in just matters of seconds.
Natalia did a great job at summarizing this article and providing key details to help the reader fully understand this article, I think she could have improved this article by including a few statistics on how many criminal investigations have used this new technique. It would also have been interesting to know who discovered this new fast way of identifying human hair.
I thought this article overall was interesting and new to me. What stood out most to me was the fact that this method only takes 85 seconds, and that it is 100% successful.
Sean Ryan
Current Event
In Natalia's article Caught by a hair quick, it talked about a current discovery, which made it even more interesting. I liked how she chose an article which is not only interesting but also revolutionary and can most definitely change the time it takes to trace DNA. It is also apparently 100 percent accurate which means no more people who are innocent will be wrongfully imprisoned. This discovery will be so useful for future cases and can also prove people to be innocent now if futher evidence with hair samples come up.
Natalia overall did a good job but could have talked a little more about the two doctors who created this new way to test DNA, and who they are what have they achieved,. Also she could have talked more about the new hair samples and how this is different from what was used before and maybe how much more efficient it will be to test DNA.
In conclusion i thought she did an excellent job and I learned a lot and hope to learn more about this new way of tracing DNA.
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