posted for Ruby Howell
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics Current Event #3
September 24th, 2019
Wilson, Clare. “Bacteria Could Identify Month-Old Suspicious Stains at Crime Scenes.” New Scientist, Health, 13 May 2019, www.newscientist.com/article/2202640-bacteria-could-identify-month-old-suspicious-stains-at-crime-scenes/.
In the recent article, Author Clare Wilson dives into the importance of stains found at crime scenes, and their importance in solving the crime. Titled, “Bacteria Could Identify Month-Old Suspicious Stains at Crime Scenes.”, the author provides significant research regarding the processes in which investigators go through in order to solve the crime that was committed. Wilson mentions how there is more than meets the eye when it comes to crime scenes, touching on how even the smallest amounts of DNA trace evidence can make the difference in finding the culprit of the crime:“If you see something that looks like a trace, you want to know if it’s important,”.
The article explained that when bacteria is found at a crime scene, it must be tested for a variety of things. For example, it must be tested for any present toxic chemicals or drugs. These tests are known to take a couple of weeks, some even lasting for months. The author even mentions one of the tests used in studying bacteria found at crime scenes, such as using Luminol spray. The article explained that although this method can reveal blood spots it is in no way a completely reliable test because it is easily reactable with other substances around it. While explaining the scientific part of the use of bacteria in the investigation of crime scenes, the article also mentioned the legal side of this data collecting. According to the author, "The legal aspect of forensic testing separates it from clinical testing,", going on to explain that because the data could potentially be used in a court of law, there are some surprising legal requirements when it comes to recording data from a crime scene. Forensic scientists must use the “chain of custody”, meaning that there is a legal document created to record the testing and analysis of the data.
Overall, the article did an excellent job explaining not only the scientific aspect of data collecting at crime scenes, but also expressing the legal side. While I did enjoy reading about the legal side of the article, the author did not go into much detail about the scientific part, and only discussed the broader aspects of studying bacteria data at a crime scene. In the future I would like to find a more scientific article that focused more on the DNA part of crime scene investigations, rather than the legal side.
2 comments:
Clara DeMagalhaes Current Event 4
Wilson, Clare. “Bacteria Could Identify Month-Old Suspicious Stains at Crime Scenes.” New Scientist, Health, 13 May 2019, www.newscientist.com/article/2202640-bacteria-could-identify-month-old-suspicious-stains-at-crime-scenes/.
https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/2019/09/posted-for-ruby-howell-mr.html
Ruby’s review of the article that she read for this week’s current event assignment was well written and substantial. One aspect of the review that was done well was that the summary was very clear and concise, getting to the point right off the bat and making sure the reader understands the subject well. The critique given to the article was something that I found to be well thought out and well-reasoned. Looking back at the article, I can definitely agree with Ruby about how it would have been better if the author went into more detail about the scientific side of studying bacterial data. Lastly, the frequent use of quotes from the source material lends more credibility and also gives a feel for how the original article was narrated. They were also inserted at appropriate intervals and not too many were implemented.
While the review overall was very well done, there were a couple of smaller aspects that could use improvement. For starters, it was a bit difficult to discern which parts of the article were meant to talk about how the topic was important to society, since the majority of the review felt like a summary. Additionally, I would have also liked to hear Ruby’s personal thoughts on the article. I think that a way to improve on these small aspects would be to create a clear relevance paragraph which focuses more on what she garnered from the article and why it is significant to society.
This topic was extremely interesting to read about, and I liked how the article and the review also went into the legal side of the issue rather than focusing wholly on the scientific side of it. It’s very interesting how such miniscule seeming forms of life can actually lead to key pieces of evidence in a crime scene. It’s definitely a topic that I’d like to learn more about in the future and also it’d be interesting to follow developments on it.
Wilson, Clare. “Bacteria Could Identify Month-Old Suspicious Stains at Crime Scenes.” New Scientist, Health, 13 May 2019, www.newscientist.com/article/2202640-bacteria-could-identify-month-old-suspicious-stains-at-crime-scenes/.
https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/2019/09/posted-for-ruby-howell-mr.html
For this week's current event I decided to read Ruby's review of the article, "Bacteria Could Identify Month-Old Suspicious Stains at Crime Scenes." by Claire Wilson. After reading Ruby's review on this article I think she did a great job writing a very informative yet concise review about this article that articulated all the main points that a reader needs to know to understand the information. Another thing Ruby did a great job doing in this review was discussing the main ideas of the article, for example, "...although this method can reveal blood spots it is in no way a completely reliable test because it is easily reachable with other substances around it". I also think Ruby also did a great job of giving the author constructive criticism on how they could make their article better.
I really enjoyed reading Ruby's article but she was lacking a couple of things that I think would have really made her article stand out. One thing I wish was added in this review was how this article related to the real world, and how the bacteria is used to identify stains.
Overall, I really enjoyed this review that Ruby wrote, not only was it very well written, but it was very informative for me to learn about.
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