I read the article “Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint.” It is about how in a study from the students from the University of Alabama, the team has tried to figure out ways to identify someone’s gender based on the unique fingerprints left behind during a crime scene investigation. Fingerprints for the investigators have always been a way to identify someone, and now scientists are trying to find new ways to figure out more information based on the prints. The students at the University of Alabama have tried to figure out gender by using the amount of amino acids found on the print by heating the fingerprint surface to 40 degrees celsius which causes the amino acids to lift off. The amino acids would then be sprayed with a chemical dye which oxidizes to a certain color based on the concentration. Females typically have a higher concentration of amino acids, and this test was found to work 99% of the time.
This finding can be very helpful to investigators because they can quickly identify the gender of the person who left behind the print. This can rule out suspects fairly quickly of the opposite gender. The team who performed the experiment says that this is also useful because it is quite easy to use and doesn’t require someone to be trained specially. Since in crime scenes, most contain fingerprints, it would be useful to get a lot of useful info out of a single print.
This article was quite interesting and gave a lot of background information. However, when it describes the test efficiency/how well it worked, the team stated that it worked for 99% of the time. It could have been more thorough in telling us why there was a 1% error in the testing, or what went wrong. Then it could talk of ways that the scientists are working to improve the new way to get gender (how they are going to try and eliminate the error so it will work all the time). This article could have included more quotes and include perhaps several cases where this tech was helpful.
9 comments:
I enjoyed reading Cindy’s review and the article “Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint” because I found it very interesting and acquired new information. First, I liked how the author of the review explained the process of determining and examining fingerprints to the reader and talked about how everything could be identified. This made me understand the process much better and captured my attention. Also, I liked how Cindy compared the process of identifying fingerprints before this discovery to how this process changed investigations and why it is important. Lastly, I really liked that Cindy referenced and talked about a study done by the University of Alabama, this makes the article and review more realistic and makes the reader understand it more. To conclude, I really enjoyed this review because of the interesting information it provided and how it connected with the reader.
Even though this review had strong information, some of the aspects were not as great. First, as stated in the last paragraph of the review, the article and review did not provide specific information about the other one percent of inaccuracy in the experiments. It states that ninety-nine percent of the time the test was successful but does not leave information about the other one percent. Also, I think that Cindy should have gone into further description about the background of fingerprint testing because she skips straight to an investigation done at a university without explaining anything before it. Although that piece of information was of minimal importance, I did not have an understanding of fingerprint testing prior to reading the review.
I learned a lot of new information reading this article and review. First, I learned about a new technique of testing fingerprints using amino acids, and this made me wonder about other techniques and the importance of fingerprints. Also, I learned about how accurate this process is and how it could be used in future investigations. Reading this article and review changed my understanding of forensic science because I learned how accurate it is and how important it could be in the future. Lastly, I learned that this process is so simple that anyone could do it, this would save money and conclude investigations faster. Overall, I enjoyed reading the article and review of “Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint” and it gave me hope for the future of forensic investigations.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/11/identifying-gender-fingerprint
Augenstein, Seth. "Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint." Forensic Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
I like how Cindy reviewed this article. Her writing is comprehensive, articulate, understandable and interesting. She related all the information that the article conveyed. I also enjoyed how she mentioned that this new procedure and associated information obtained would eliminate a whole contingent of suspects. I did not think this new investigative technique would be tremendously helpful because we have seen how many bits of information can be obtained from a fingerprint even before identifying a suspect: race, exposure to chemicals (drugs, explosives, nicotine), time since application, and scientists are working on many others. This latest technique however, will eliminate either males or females from the suspect pool. That could be very helpful! Also very interesting was finding out that women have more amino acids in them than do men. I wonder why that is.
I think the review could have been made better by giving more information on the 99% accuracy figure. I like how she mentioned that the testing was 99% effective and that we do not know why 1% of the time it was inaccurate. I too would now like to know. The article does not explain this point. Upon further investigation, I found that the procedures used to determine this quantity were determined through extensive applications of both Statistics and Calculus. There was a good balance between sensitivity and specificity and I suppose if the test used a lower Confidence Interval, it would yield a greater success rate. Although, it is probably more desirable to be confident in your findings when you are successful. I am hoping that this 99% is good enough that they would still use it on cases. I hope they could improve the technique with the same CI for applications in real life situations. I am sure though, that this is not the final say in convicting someone - it is merely a guideline or an arrow pointing investigators to a suspect. Another improvement could have been if she explained a little bit more about the results. I do not know if it was in the article but which color are male and female amino acid trails? Why do women have a higher concentration of amino acids than men?
I was impressed by the new development because it is certainly very useful for practically every case. With all the troubles that arise from touch evidence, I am glad to find out that there is another useful thing it can do. I agree with Cindy, I would have liked to have seen a case solved or a criminal caught (or eliminated) as a direct result of this new technology.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/11/identifying-gender-fingerprint
Augenstein, Seth. "Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint." Forensic Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
I enjoyed reading Cindy’s review on her article because it was interesting and informing. She describes how a team study from University of Alabama tried to figure out ways of identifying someone’s gender through their fingerprints. She did a well job of describing how this process is successful. She also talks about how fingerprints in an investigation can always lead to the identification of someone and that scientists are trying to figure out more detailed ways of the identity of someone. After she discusses that a certain amount of amino acids that are used on fingerprints can help investigators quickly identify the gender of a person that left the fingerprint behind. This helps investigators narrow down a perpetrator or a victim by their gender. One area where Cindy could have improved is describing how scientists are going to continue their research within the forensic science department of a crime. Another area of improvement I found was that Cindy could have gone further into detail about the background of fingerprint testing because there is a gap between the study at University of Alabama and how that has evolved from fingerprint testings. I learned a lot of new information from reading her review. I learned about the amino acids technique with temperature and how that helps forensic investigators figure out the gender of a fingerprint. I also learned that this process is going to be very useful during investigations in the future. Her article had changed my idea of where scientists are involving fingerprinting analysis and how much farther they will succeed until they are able to figure out every specific detail of a person by analyzing their fingerprint.
I think Cindy did a really good job in summarizing the article. I like how she explained how the fingerprints were examined. This little description helped me understand the process more. I like how she said that this method can rule out suspects of the other gender because this can be really helpful in future cases. She also made the review easy to read and understand.
One thing she could have improved is by telling us why the 1% of the time this technique is unsuccessful and then she could have talked about possible ways to improve this technique to make it a 100% effective. She could have also used some quotes from the article to help explain some of her points.
I have learned a lot from reading this review. This review informed me on how this technique is used to identify someone’s gender. I believe that this technique will become more used in cases because of how easy it is to use. Overall, this review this review was interesting and was well done.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/11/identifying-gender-fingerprint
Augenstein, Seth. "Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint." Forensic Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2015/11/identifying-gender-fingerprint
Augenstein, Seth. "Identifying Gender From a Fingerprint." Forensic Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Cindy did a great job at summarizing the article. She accurately presented the important contexts in the most concise way. I enjoyed how she mentioned that this new procedure and associated information obtained would shorten the list of suspects. I didn’t imagine that this new technique would be this helpful because we have seen how information can be obtained even from the smallest evidence, for instance, fingerprint. I was also surprised to know how it will determine the suspect’s gender. It may have just been myself but it was interesting to learn that women have more amino acids in them than do men.
Despite Cindy’s precise report, I think the review would have been better if she described how scientists are going to continue their research within the forensic science department. What I also thought she could improve on was her going into detail about the background of fingerprint testing because there is a slight confusion between the study at University of Alabama and how that has evolved from fingerprint testings.
I am very excited for the development in the field of fingerprint ID because it is certainly heavily involved in criminal cases and positive reviews that helps fasten the investigations are shown from it. Although I was generally satisfied to be enlightened new information from this article, I would have liked to have been presented a case solved that showed the direct result and use of this newfound technology.
I think Cindy explained very well how the students at the University of Alabama tried to figure out gender from a fingerprint. Also she presented very well how this could help investigators by ruling out suspects by their gender. Cindy especially explained very well that the experiment is very useful because it is easy to do.
I think Cindy’s review is very good, a suggestion I would give to improve it is to put quotes from the article into her review. Also another suggestion would be to give scenarios of how this experiment could help cases.
I was very impressed that you can identify someone's gender from a fingerprint by using the amount of amino acid on the print because women have a higher concentration of amino acid.
Cindy’s article showed another new found importance for fingerprints. She accurately described this importance and how this research could be applied to forensic investigations. She explained how amino acids in a fingerprint can allow an investigator to determine the gender of a fingerprint with approximately ninety nine percent accuracy. She explained how this is significant and interesting, but the lack of certainty could lead to problems with reliability. It could also lead to problems in court to utilize this as valid evidence.
One flaw of the article review was that she didn’t give any information about this one percent inaccuracy in the tests. It could have benefited from information telling about whether this inaccuracy would lead to problems in its admissibility in court and what exactly caused this inaccuracy. The article also didn’t talk about how this difference in the amount of amino acids in fingerprints exists. Why do women have a higher amino acid count than men and what causes this?
The article overall was very interesting. It means that fingerprints can now still aid investigators in finding a suspect even if their print is not in any database. It can likely rule out an entire gender. However, the inaccuracy of this test does raise some concern.
Post a Comment