DNA could reveal your surname

Scientists at the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester are developing techniques which will enable the identification of the surname of an individual through the analysis of DNA. Research has shown that men with the same British surname are highly likely to be genetically linked. From research done by Turi King, she has said that there is a link between the surname of an individual and the Y chromosome. Dr. King performed a test of about 2,500 men with 500 different surnames. Dr King's research showed that between two men who share the same surname there is a 24% chance of sharing a common ancestor through that name but that this increases to about 50% if the surname they have is rare. These results have a potential use in forensic science, since it suggests that, given large databases of names and Y chromosome profiles, surname prediction from DNA alone may be feasible.


http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/40747/DNA_could_reveal_your_surname.html

Minutiae and Fingerprints

A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology has shown that computerized systems that match fingerprints using interoperable minutiae templates, or a mathematical representation of a fingerprint image, have been highly accurate as an alternative to the full fingerprint image. The National Institute of Standards and Technology conducted the study, called the Minutiae Interoperability Exchange Test or MINEX, to determine whether fingerprint system vendors could successfully use a recently approved standard for minutiae data. There hope was that this would work rather than needing images of actual prints as the medium for exchanging data between different fingerprint matching systems.

More Internet predators are challenging agents

MADISON, Wis. -Eric Szatkowski is a Wisconsin Justice Department special agent, but on that Sunday afternoon he entered an online chat room as a 14-year-old boy.
He claimed he was into weightlifting, AC/DC and muscle magazines. Then he waited.
Within hours, screen name Paul2u sent a message: "Hi. u realy 14?"
Over the past decade, agents and computer experts have gone after hundreds of people like Paul2u who solicit sex from kids or trade child pornography online. Police efforts around the country were all the rage with the media in the early 2000s, reaching a crescendo with Dateline NBC's "To Catch A Predator" series.
Despite the publicity then and now, the bad guys haven't gone away. They've quietly multiplied. Trading child porn online and grooming underage targets in chat rooms has exploded nationwide. With arrests more than quadrupling in 10 years, Wisconsin's agents and analysts feel overwhelmed.
"I don't think we've made significant progress at all," Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. "Our community leaders don't even know how bad the problem is. The general population has no idea."

Traces Of Blood Are Eliminated Completely By New Products Containign Active Oxygen

Just recently a team of scientists from the University of Valencia have proven that traces of blood at a crime scene can be eliminated completely when exposed to active oxygen. The main objective of a criminal is to not get caught, so they will try everything in their path to succeed, with the motivation to remain free, criminals have come up with a new way to beat forensic scientists at their own game. Using active oxygen, criminals smuther the blood evidence, causing a chemical reaction that prevents forensic scientists from successfully testing for the presence of blood. It is hypothesized that the active oxygen products contain sodium percarbonate that, when dissolved in water cause a considerable quantity of hydrogen peroxide (oxygenated water) is released. This reaction then causes the "depletion" of haemoglobin in attempt to eliminate the peroxide. With this reaction having occured, police scientists are no longer able to discover the traces of blood using reagents such as luminol, phenophthalene, or the human haemoglobin test.
In time the cycle will repeat itself; scientists will discover a new way to test for the presence of blood and eventually criminals will find away to eliminate the evidence. This game of cat and mouse will always continue, however, it will just become harder and harder to win.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217112516.htm

Science Found Wanting in Nation’s Crime Labs

This coming month, the National Academy of Sciences will be releasing a report criticizing various forensic methods – fingerprinting, firearms identification, blood spatter, and hair – that police and prosecutors have heavily relied on for the past century in order to convict thousands of defendants. The report states that Congress needs to create a federal agency to guarantee proper examination of trace evidence since mediocre lab technicians usually handle the majority of these forensic techniques. To emphasize the necessity for federal takeover, the report includes a series of widely publicized crime laboratory failures including the Brandon Mayfield Case in which a suspect was wrongfully convicted due to the inexperience of people handling the forensic evidence. This report could spell doom for the field of forensics as we know it: lawyers will swiftly discredit forensic procedures as inaccurate in court while judges may raise the bar for admissibility of forensic evidence. But there is an upside to this, the report calls for the establishment of a federal agency to to finance research and training and promote universal standards in forensic science, a discipline that spans anthropology, biology, chemistry, physics, medicine and law. The report also calls for tougher regulation of crime laboratories. With any luck this report will help people realize the critical needs of forensic crime labs and that it is our responsibility to bring them up-to-date.

Moore, Solomon. "Science Found Wanting in Nation’s Crime Labs ." New York Times. 25 Mar. 2009 .

Show Me Your DNA And I'll Tell You Your Eye Color

More and more information is being gathered about how human genes influence medically relevant traits, such as the propensity to develop a certain disease. A group of researchers form the Netherlands put this goal to a test using eye colour. The group around Manfred Kayser of the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam showed that it can be predicted with an accuracy of over 90% whether a person has blue or brown eyes by analysing DNA from only 6 different positions of the genome. Manfred Kayser and his colleagues analysed the DNA of over 6000 Dutch people whose eye colour had been scored. They determined the sequence at 37 SNPs in 8 eye colour genes for each of these and found that the eye colour of a given individual can be predicted with over 90% confidence already with the best 6 SNPs from 6 genes, as long as the persons's eyes are blue or brown. For the intermediate colour, shown by about 10% of the people tested, the accuracy is lower at about 75%. Also, the reliability of such DNA-based eye color prediction test currently depends on an accurate knowledge that the unknown person whose DNA was tested is of European descent, since the used SNPs are associated with eye color but have no direct functional implications as far as known. Inferring highly accurate information on European ancestry from a DNA sample is not trivial, although such research is underway as well. More and more information is being gathered about how human genes influence medically relevant traits, such as the propensity to develop a certain disease. The ultimate goal is to predict whether or not a given trait will develop later in life from the genome sequence alone (i.e. from the sequence of the bases that make up the DNA strands that store genetic information in every cell of the body).

The article I read talked about the many different ways forensic science is progressing today, and how this progress is allowing criminal investigators to solve cases faster and more efficiently.  To begin with, forensic scientists are most pleased with a new test that can determine a person's ancestry using DNA.  This test is executed through a program known as DNAWitness, which can distinguish between European, African American, Asian, and Native American DNA.  This enables scientists to establish what a person looks like, even if their DNA is not in any crime database, and no witnesses have seen the perpetrator leave evidence.  This enabled police to solve a series of crimes in Baton Rouge, connecting the deaths of many blonde women to a single serial killer, whose ancestry was determined to be African-American.  This test helped narrow their field of suspects, and eventually led them to the actual criminal.  Criminal investigators are currently working on a test that they hope will enable them to detect hair color and even facial characteristics.

In addition to this, scientists at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute have a method for extracting DNA from the microscopic remnants of skin left behind when a person touches an object.  The test can be performed in minutes at the crime scene, and can also work for blood, hair, saliva, or even a flake of dandruff.  Although the test is not widely accessible by crime labs, it is still very helpful and upon perfection could aid in many different cases.

These two new tests together are enabling forensic investigators and criminalists to solve cases more accurately and quickly than previously thought possible.  Thus, these new technologies are a huge boon for criminal investigations, and can potentially bring many criminals to justice in the near future

Report questions legitmacy in Forensic Science

The National Academy of Sciences says many courtroom claims about fingerprints, bite marks and other evidence lack scientific verification. It finds forensics inconsistent and in disarray nationwide.
For decades, forensic scientists have made sweeping claims in court about fingerprints, ballistics, handwriting, bite marks, shoe prints and blood splatters that lack empirical grounding and have never been verified by science.

This is just one conclusion of a two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, which on Wednesday called for a wholesale overhaul of the crime lab system that has become increasingly critical to American jurisprudence.

The academy, the preeminent science advisor to the federal government, found a system in disarray: labs that are underfunded and beholden to law enforcement, lacking independent oversight and without consistent standards.

The report concludes that the deficiencies pose "a continuing and serious threat to the quality and credibility of forensic science practice," imperiling efforts to protect society from criminals and shield innocent people from wrongful convictions.
With the notable exception of DNA evidence, the report says that many forensic methods have never been shown to consistently and reliably connect crime scene evidence to a specific individual or source.

"The simple reality is that the interpretation of forensic evidence is not always based on scientific studies to determine its validity," the report says.

For example, the frequent claims that fingerprint analysis had a zero error rate are "not scientifically plausible," the report said. Regarding bite marks, it said, "the scientific basis is insufficient to conclude that bite mark comparisons can result in a conclusive match."
Of the 232 people exonerated by DNA evidence, more than 50% of cases involved faulty or unvalidated forensic science, according to the Innocence Project. In Los Angeles, the Police Department is reviewing 1,000 fingerprint cases after discovering that two people had been wrongfully accused because of faulty fingerprint analysis.

Margaret Berger, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School and a member of the panel, explained, "We're not saying all these disciplines are useless. We're saying there is a lot of work needs to be done." While the panel's recommendations are not binding, they are considered influential. Many experts say the report could have a broad impact on crime labs and the courts, ushering in changes at least as significant as those generated by the advent of DNA evidence two decades ago. But the sweeping reforms proposed by the academy would take years of planning and major federal funding to enact.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/19/nation/na-crime-science19

Recession may worsen spread of exotic diseases

Scientists throughout the last couple of months have had to deal with the growing epidemic of diseases that might return from the recession. Dengue fever, Chikungunya, Malaria, Chagas and Leishmaniasis are some of the diseases that will return if scientists don't fix it. Many of the different countries are cutting health resources which will make it harder for some of the countries to protect people from stopping these diseases. According to Jeffrey Levi “States do not have resources to keep people on board and these people are monitoring diseases, the epidemiologists doing shoe leather investigations,”. Climate change is a major factor that scientists are scared about, because they don't know exactly what this will do for these diseases to be stopped. Virginia Tech did reserach last year and found out that a 1 degree increaase will occur in the next year. The total for all emerging diseases was $130.3 million for fiscal 2008. healthcare which has stopped allowing treatments, and vaccines to stop these diseases. If we don't do something about this soon then these diseasees will remerge and many millions of people will be affected and could possibly die. These things aren't things we are thinking about, but if we stop thinking about them then we could have a breakout and it wouldn't be able to be stopped. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29599786/

New Technique Developed To Date Forensic Death Based On Corpse Microorganisms

A group of scientists of the University of Granada has developed a new technique of forensic dating based on thermo-microbiology, which will allow to determine more accurately the time of a death. Even though, there has not been any controlled test they believe that this technique will help the forensic scientist This new system, of great interest in the field of criminology, establishes correspondences between the parameters of micro-organic growth on cadaverous remains and dates the time of death of such remains, as well as their relation with their temperature.The study has been carried out by Professor Isabel Fernández Corcobado whose goal was to establish the initial methodological basis to create a protocol of general application in the field of Forensic Termography and Microbiology. Hopefully this new forensic testing will be be a big help to the forensic scientist. 

Show Me Your DNA and I'll Tell You Your Eye Color

Medically speaking, scientists have worked to achieve a major goal for years. Their objective is to predict whether or not a given trait will develop later in life by simply studying the genome sequence, meaning the sequence of the bases that make up the DNA strand. Recently, a group of researchers from the Netherlands have been testing this goal using eye color. They found that the color of a person’s eye can be determined with 90% accuracy, so long as the have blue or brown eyes, by analyzing the DNA from six differently places within the genome. Human eye color is determined by the pigmentation on the iris and is known as a “complex trait,” meaning more than one gene controls what color the eyes will be. People with different eye color will have different DNA sequences, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP’s). The SNPs of over 6000 people were analyzed and it was determined that given a sequence at thirty-seven SNPs in eight eye color genes for each, the actual eye color can be determined with 90% certainty with the best six SNPs from six genes. This study is extremely important because it proves that complex traits can, in fact, be predicted by studying the genome sequence as long as the genes do exist and are known. One benefit to knowing this is that disease risks can be assessed early on by analyzing a DNA sample. In relation to forensic science, if there is a case where the only trace of a suspect is a DNA sample, but the DNA profile does not match that of a known suspect, it can help identify a previously unknown suspect.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090309121933.htm

New Field Of Research Could Help Police In Crime Scene Forensics

TGen (Translational Genomics Research Institute) have found a way to identify possible suspects at crime scenes using a small amount of DNA. Using genotyping microarrays scientist were able to identify an individual’s DNA even if it’s in a mix sample of DNA. They were able to do identity a mix with more than 200 individual DNA samples. This discovery could help police investigators better identify suspects even after dozens of people have been at the crime scene over time. Dr. David W. Craig said "By employing the powers of genomic technology, it is now possible to know with near certainty that a particular individual was at a particular location, even with only trace amounts of DNA and even if dozens or even hundreds of others were there, too.''

Eyewitness

A recent case was done on 60 Minutes about the effectiveness of an eye witness. Jennifer Thompson was raped on July 28, 1984. When shown pictures of possible suspects, after several minutes, Jennifer pointed to Ronald Cotton and said that he was the one. She then backed up her statement by choosing him once from a line of people. Ronald Cotton was convicted and spent eleven years in prison before hearing about a new test for identification called DNA. After a DNA test of a single sperm cell preserved from the case, Ronald Cotton was freed. Through devine forgiveness powers, Ronald has accepted Jennifer's sincere apology and they have become close friends that try and spread the knowledge of their story in order to help others. There have been 233 people exonerated in the United States alone since the discovery of DNA testing; furthermore, three quarters of these people were originally convicted through an eye witness testomony. This is thought to be because the human brain can trick itself into thinking one of the people in a line up must be the person. Once they have picked them out from the line-up, their brain is now convinced that he/she is the person which can lead to very convincing emotions in the court room. Hopefully DNA can continue to free the innocent and lock away the true guilty.

Dating Forensic Death Based On Corpse Microorganisms

A group of scientists of the University of Granada has developed a new technique of forensic dating based on thermo-microbiology, which will allow to determine more accurately the time of a death which has not occurred under controlled natural conditions or as a consequence of a crime. To carry out this work, the authors analysed about 240 microorganic samples taken from bodies from the Institute of Legal Medicine of Granada and 352 from living donors. They have used new thermographical and weather measurement tools and they have applied traditional microbiological methods with a new approach. The aim of this work is to establish a microbiological indicator to determine the time of death. Therefore, scientists have tried an alternative method of approach to the estimated time of death in order to reduce the present margin of error in the application of other different methods and limit to the maximum the moment of death.
This new mothod is very interesting to forensic science. Without using algor mortis or forensic entomology scientists can now use an even more effective method to determine the time of death on any victim that is recorvered to forensic science.

New Method For Processing Rape Evidence Could Eliminate Crime-lab Backlogs

With an estimated 250,000 items of sexual assault evidence in a three to twelve backlog awaiting analysis in American forensic laboratories, a need for a more time-efficient way to process the information has inspired Jessica Voorhees Noris to find a new solution to adress the issue at hand. As a Ph.D canidate in forensic chemistry at U.Va, Noris formulated a strategy to process rape kit evidence capable of reducing parts of DNA analysis time from 24 hours to as low as 30-45 minutes. In addition, the technique also improves the sperm cell recovery rate by 100 percent. If accepted, Noris' method could possibly reduce the backlog within just a couple of months. In the case of which a woman is sexually assaulted, first, lab technicians must remove female and male cells from a cotton swab with a specific detergent. Then, DNA from the large number of epithelial cells from the victim's vagina must be seperated from the low number of sperm cells obtained from the perpetrator, a process that requires an overnight sitting of the cells in an enzyme that will release the significantly fragile female cells allowing the release of DNA for analysis. Once the female DNA is extracted, stronger regeants are used to burst open the very durable sperm cells. When the process has completed, profiles can then be generated for both the victim and perpatrator based off the extracted DNA samples. This technique, used for decades, has proven to be very time consuming. With Noris' suggested method, however, the method of seperating the male and female DNA fragments is simplified as it eliminates the requirement of overnight incubation while at the same times doubles the recovery of sperm cells.

Bad Behavior inherited from Bad Genes

The article I read spoke about how aggressive antisocial behavior and bullying can be inherited through genes. I found it interesting to read that it's actually more likely to be inherited than are non-aggressive antisocial behaviors such as theft, delinquency and truancy. It was also fascinating to read how there is such a degree of genetic and environmental factors that influence both children and adolescents when there is a combination of aggressive and non-aggressive behavior. Also, various psychologists believe that boys learn non-aggressive antisocial behavior more from environmental influences that they encounter, whereas girls get it more because of their genes. In terms of peer pressure, girl relationships are different from guy relationships and that too, plays a role. The reports from the study were supported by grants from the Child Health Research Appeal Trust, Institute of Child Health, University of London and Pennsylvania State University. The discussion has become a major debate. I wasn't really aware that aggression could be inherited to such a degree. The article was very thorough and it was quite interesting.

New forensics lab planned in Tulsa

TULSA -- Construction is planned next spring on a forensics center that will aid police investigations and educate Oklahoma State University students.
"It's a practicing laboratory with academic programs devoted to forensic science," said Robert Allen, professor of forensics science and biochemistry at the OSU medical college, which will provide $21.87 million for construction costs, mainly from bonds.
The city will provide $16.86 million from revenue generated by the 2001 and 2006 third-penny sales tax, and the 2005 general obligation bond, said Laura Christiansen, spokeswoman for the city.
It will be built on OSU's Tulsa campus.
A property and evidence room and a forensics laboratory for the Tulsa Police Department will occupy the first two floors of the facility, said Maj. Steven Bayles, the department's project manager. Police forensics investigators now work in a confined space.
"This will give them the opportunity to have more room to perform their examinations," Bayles said.
Capt. Jim Hunter said the additional room will help the department preserve the more than 36,000 items of evidence police gather yearly, including evidence for homicide cases, which are kept until the convicted person gets out of prison.
Police also keep evidence in "cold cases," or unsolved homicides.
In November, more than 20 scientists and staff members performed 2,550 tests on evidence, with 2,398 backlogged cases involving tests carried over into December.
Work performed in the forensics laboratory include fingerprint analysis, DNA testing, firearms examinations, controlled substance analysis and handwriting analysis.
The building will include forensic science classrooms, research labs and faculty offices.

DNA Paternity Test Almost Fooled: Man Put Someone Else's Saliva In His Mouth

Taking a paternity test is not as simple as it was anymore: Forensic scientists are now asking the person taking any kind of test involving the mouth, to rinse their mouths before in front of a witness. The fraud attempt took place in a paternity test, when the donor mixed his own saliva with that of someone else's. Researchers from all over the world have been carrying out paternity tests regularly. Samples are usually collected from mouth and saliva cells to carry out the DNA analysis. The team of Dr José Antonio Lorente Acosta states "the saliva analysis collected from a person undergoing a paternity test gave an incongruous result, a DNA which could not come from the man who had carried out the test."

When they reviewed the case, it revealed that they had followed the usual procedure: the suspect washed his mouth and after that they took the samples with a cotton swab. "After repeating the analysis, there was an only one possible conclusion: In the mouth of that man there was DNA from two different persons" said Dr.Acosta. Dr. Acosta then asked the man in question how he did it and he confessed that he did so by putting someone elses' saliva into his mouth which he was keeping in a container. After a further test, it was revealed that he was in fact the biological father (99.999998%)!.

3D Scanning: A New Tool for Cracking Tough Cases

http://www.forensicmag.com/articles.asp?pid=264

Today more and more people are beginning to use the 3D method of examining figures and evidence. In the past 3D machines were only used for overviews of places to see what the crime scene looked like but now it is being used to see objects themselves as if you were holding the actual object. US forensics laboratories have been working to put both of these aspects into one joint database where you can see the overall site and also the selected objects.  To capture "3D closeups" of key physical evidence, a high resolution from NextEngine is used. The cereal-box sized scanning unit is mounted on a tripod and aimed at the target object. Multiple laser stripes sweep across the target, and are cross-referenced to provide a high level of data accuracy and a clean 3D surface. Color information is also captured for a visually accurate 3D image of the target. There has been technological advances that has made it much more affordable for this equipment and much easier to manage these programs. Today's easy accessibility to 3D scanning technology makes it possible for any lab to permanently record this data, and provide it instantly to the people that need it.

Video Enhancement of Video Images

Often times, identification of suspects and perpetrators is accomplished by or in corroboration with video footage. The video footage usually analyzes many features of an individual, one very important feature being the face. The face is a key identifying tool for law enforcement. With it, a person can be matched with almost complete certainty to their facial image. However, video footage is not always easy to work with. Often times, cameras are out of focus, in bad condition, not functioning properly, in poor lighting, or simply of poor quality. This often poses major problems when trying to identify a suspect. When an image is enlarged, it becomes very pixelated, and cisual enhancement does only so much to improve this. Herein lies the problem of using video fotage. The solution: forensic sketch artists. A forensic sketch artist can easily reckognize facial features, and recreate them in a drawing. To replicate the still photograph with detail, a forensic artist can use the visible forehead contouring and bony structures, and selected full front facial features can be drawn in similar proportions. With a magnifying glass, fingerprint loop, or microscope, more detailed shapes, shadows, and images can be readily seen for the artist to replicate and place in proportion. Features such as a jawline (lower mandible) can break in a normal range or in an abnormal (or extreme) shape. When features are unclear or grayed in the image, the forensic artist knows to go the normal route, rather than guess, until further information can be obtained. 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. Although the finished sketch is not always completely accurate to the individual's facial features, most of the time, enough resemblence is present to make a connection and pinpoint the individual as a suspect.

CSI Fact Catching Up With Fiction As Chemists Develop New Technology

The actual analysis of bloodstains and other evidence is not quite as fast as the analysis seen on televisions shows, such as CSI, but real life forensic analysis is speeding up. Researchers have been developing faster, more sensitive devices to help analyze forensic evidence. Some of the new tools that may soon be used include a highly sensitive method for the identification of different fabric dyes, which will help distinguish between many different types of fibers that may look similar. A hand held spectrometer is being developed that can detect explosives and illegal drug residues while investigators are at the scene. Although real life forensic analysis may not be as fast as on television, shows such as CSI have been very helpful, suggests the article, "Clues at the Scene of the Crime," as they have brought on a new appreciation for forensic science among college students.

University of Leicester announces world first forensic technique

Having formerly used two types of radiology in mass fatality and temporary mortuary investigations, plain x-ray and fluoroscopy, pathologists have found a new radiological approach towards investigating mass fatalities. The previous methods have been time consuming, yielded limited information, are a health and safety hazard to those working in the environment due to the use of radiological equipment outside their normal working area, and are also not undertaken at the scene of the incident. The first time that the new method of identifying those involved in a mass fatality accident occurred when a team of researchers led by Professor Guy Rutty of the University of Leicester Forensic Pathology Unit used a mobile MSCT scanner at the mortuary for the examination of the victims of a vehicle mass fatality incident. After having used the new instrument for the first time, Professor Rutty said: "The demonstration of the ability to utilize mobile MSCT technology under these circumstances may result in a complete rethinking of the type of radiology to be used in temporary mortuaries or mass fatalities scenes. The work presently being undertaken by my research team within the Forensic Pathology Unit at the University of Leicester in this area is hoped to develop new approaches to mass fatality radiological investigation which may be adopted throughout the world."