Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Sticky fingers: Developing a materials science approach to forensics." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 April 2015.
According this Science Daily article, research has revealed that faded fingerprints can be rebuilt, effectively extending the window of time that forensic scientists have to collect fingerprints. Traditionally, it was believed that fingerprints only last a certain amount of time before degrading. This new technique, that involves acetic acid, and heated-superglue, could help recover fingerprints that would otherwise be useless. Linda Lewis, a wildlife biologist, is the forensic scientist responsible for this new discovery. She managed to come across this technique by applying materials science techniques to forensics. Her research shows that acetic acid could be used to reveal old fingerprints, then heated super glue could be used to build on these prints to bring them up to a detectable level. This could potentially be a breakthrough in forensic science because this could reduce the amount of cases that are thrown out because fingerprints could not be recovered.
In my opinion, this discovery is very important because it could make the difference between a conviction and a thrown-out case due to lack of evidence. This method effectively extends the lifetime of fingerprints. While this method may not help with the majority of cases, it will help scientists to discover evidence that would otherwise be unusable. This small discovery could lead to the conviction of many criminals that would otherwise be roaming free. This method prevents a scenario where a crime scene is discovered long after the crime had been committed, and any fingerprints found were useless because they had faded over time.
While this article explained who discovered this technique, and how it could be applied, it failed to give many details about how the process works. I also felt like this article could have elaborated more on how the discovery was made. Otherwise, I thought that the article was accurate, and provided factually correct information, which is important for readers who want to take this article seriously. I also thought that this article properly conveyed the importance of the discovery, and the effect that it could have on forensic science.
posted for A. Murphy
3 comments:
This article is very interesting in my opinion. I had not had any idea that fingerprints degrade over time. I learned that they in fact do and can now be recovered and reconstructed through a process involving acetic acid and heated superglue in order to rebuild the print after it has degraded. This is a revolutionary breakthrough because it makes cases that would have normally been thrown out due to lack of evidence, able to proceed.
This article is fascinating and I thought Aran had great use of descriptive language, and a good combination of opinionated material and factual material in order to create a peice of literature that truly captivates the mind of its reader. Arans skillful use of the English language in this peice is absolutely fantastic.
One suggestion that I could offer to support Arans journey as a writer would be to do outside research and add factual information from more articles so that there are more facts in the peice.
This review of the article “Sticky fingers: Developing a materials science approach to forensics” was written in a concise way that helped the reader follow along easily. The review very well organized, especially in the opening paragraph; the broad sentence that explained that fading fingerprints can now be rebuilt effortlessly flowed into the sentence explaining how fingerprints, traditionally, could only be detected in a certain time frame. It was after this sentence that the new technique for rebuilding fingerprints was introduced as well as the person who discovered this new process, which is Linda Lewis, a chemist and forensic scientist . The author made solid points in the second paragraph, in which he discusses how important of an effect this new technique will He states that the ability to rebuild fading fingerprints makes a difference between a criminal being convicted versus having to drop a case because of the lack of evidence. Lastly, the critique paragraph of this review voiced the thoughts of those who read the actual article. I agree with the statement that was made about the original article, which could have had more detail about how the discovery was made and how the process is carried out. Overall, this review was fair to the article itself and was also able to draw the reader’s attention away from the article’s flaws and more towards the main point of the article.
Although the review was well written, it could have been stronger with the addition of quotes from both Linda Lewis, who made this discovery, and also directly from the actual article. Also, I noticed that Linda Lewis was cited as a wildlife biologist. However, after reading the original article, it said that she was a chemist and forensic scientist, but by the looks of her office, it appears that she is a wildlife biologist. It would have been helpful to include the place of where she works as well to make the review more complete as a whole.
I was especially impressed by the fact that fingerprints, that was once fading and thought to be gone forever, can be rebuilt. This discovery, as the author of this review stated, can solve cases that were once believed to be impossible.
I think this review did a great job at explaining the technique used which included acetic acid and superglue to recover fingerprints. I also think the review explained who the researcher (Linda Lewis) of this technique is and how she discovered this technique very well. This review was also well done because he described why this discovery could potentially be a breakthrough in forensics science, which is because it can reduce the number of cases that are thrown away for lack of evidence. This review over all was well done.
A suggestion I would give to improve this review would be to give some more evidence like quotes from the article or from Linda Lewis. Another suggestion I would give is to say in the review some examples of a specific case or story where this technique could have helped.
I was astonished that you can recover fingerprints by using heated super glue to build on the prints so you can see them and that acetic acid could be used to detect old figure prints.
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