University of Leicester announces world first forensic technique

A new horizon for mass fatality radiology. A team led by a University of Leicester forensic pathologist is believed to be the first in the world to use a new radiological approach for mass fatality investigation. Traditionally 2 types of radiology are used in mass fatality and temporary mortuary investigations -that of fluoroscopy and plain x-ray.These techniques however are time consuming, yield limited information and are a health and safety hazard to those working in the environment due to the use of radiological equipment outside their normal working area. They are also not undertaken at the scene of the incident.

Scientists learn why flue may turn deadly

According to the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, many of the scientists can tell that influenza virus can possibly paralyze the immune systems of healthy people. Based on this information, a severe secondary bacertial infection can cause these people to die and is being looked at to see if this could come in the form of the flu.

According to Kathleen Sullivan who is involved in the study at the Dvision of allergy and Immunology at the children's hospital in Philadephia. "We have a very limited understanding of why some people who get influenza simply have a bad cold and other people become very sick and even die. The results of this study give us a much better sense of the mechanisms underlying bacterial infections arising on top of the viral infection."Many of her collegues haver recruited pediatic patients with severe influenza, and looked at the level of cytokines which show the level of immune response.

Based upon the data that was collected, they were able to compare them with patienst with a moderate strain of this and the immune paralysis was found in the people with influenza infection but not in the ones that also had respiratory syncytial virus. From this scientists can determine why one quarter of children die from influenza along with a bacterial infection. John Warry of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology believes that Despite major medical advances since the devastating flu outbreak of 1918 and 1919, influenza virus infection remains a very serious threat," "and the current swine flu outbreak is a grim reminder of this fact.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090504141843.htm

New Technique Developed to Date Forensic Death Based On Corpse Microorganisms

On March 18, 2009, it was announced that a new procedure of forensic dating based on thermo-microbiology was introduced by a group of scientists of the University of Granada. The new technique offers a more accurate approach in determining the time of death in the event that the death had not occurred under natural controlled  conditions or as the result of a crime. The study that made way for the new system, devised by Professor Isabel Fernandez, collaborates the a relationship between the parameters of micro-organic growth on cadaverous remains which are then analyzed to reveal specific dates pertaining to the time of death and furthermore, the relation with their temperature. As previous methods used to determine possible estimations of the time of death have revealed a margin of error, the project's primary intention was to discover a new method that would be more reliable and provide examiners with more accurate results. By using new thermographical and weather measurement tools along with traditional microbiological methods, the scientists who conducted the experiment took on a new approach aiming to establish a microbiological indicator to determine the time of death.

Engineers Measure Blood Alcohol Content With Spectroscopy

Using optical technology, engineers created a way to measure the amount of alcohol in a driver’s skin. They use near-infrared absorption spectroscopy to measure blood alcohol content. The light enters the arm and a detector collects reflected light. It uses a helium-neon laser as the internal reference source, and is a non-invasive alternative to current methods.
The system measures the light reflected back, which reveals how much alcohol is in the person's skin. So all they do is simply lift the lid which exposes the touch pad and this is how the light comes out of the machine and will go in and out of his tissue.
Law enforcement officials are enthusiastic about a new tool for alcohol testing that uses near-infrared absorption spectroscopy to determine a person’s blood-alcohol content more swiftly, and in a more sanitary and less invasive way, than current methods. The TruTouch 1100 system can also function as a biometric identity-verification system for prison work-release programs or airline pilots. These new techniques are really innovative and will definitely put a new label on testing people for alcohol.

Xbox Forensics

Computer scientist David Collins is working hard to replicate "mods" - both hardware and software for the Xbox and other devices. Criminals often hide illicit data on the XBox in the hope that a gaming console will not be seen as a likely evidence target especially when conventional personal computers are present in the same premises, for instance. The toolkit developed by Collins will allow police and other investigators the chance to lay bare the contents of XBox hard disks. Cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, game consoles and other devices provide a convenient means to store data of all kinds, including images, video, audio and text files. But they also provide a simple way for criminals to possess and hide illegal material too.
Collins' XFT utility can mount an image of the FATX file system used by the XBox, allowing the user to explore in detail the directory structure. Collins points out that unlike the standard FAT32, NTFS, and similar systems used by the hard disks in personal computers, there is little documentation on the proprietary FATX system. However, it is possible nevertheless to acquire an image of a FATX hard disk and to mount it on another device.
"Once the Xbox file system is mounted, the analyst can use shell commands to browse the directory tree, open files, view files in hex editor mode, list the contents of the current directory in short or long mode and expand the current directory to list all associated subdirectories and files," explains Collins.
Importantly, from the legal perspective, XFT can also record such investigative sessions for playback in a court of law, which protects the defendant from falsified as well as providing more solid evidence for the prosecution.
Collins explains how future work on XFT will involve making the toolkit into a fully functional forensic operating system (OS). This OS will be packaged as both a bootable operating system from a hard disk and a "live" bootable compact disk. "This implementation will be open source, verbosely commented and designed from the ground up as a forensic OS," says Collins, "This will remove any and all proprietary operating system dependencies, making the forensic process as transparent as possible."