Can investigators use household dust as a forensic tool?

Phys.org  April 3, 2023 Dust is an attractive evidence source, as it accumulates on undisturbed surfaces, often is overlooked by perpetrators, and contains sufficient human DNA for analysis. To assess whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped from indoor dust using massively parallel sequencing could be used to detect known household occupants, a team of researchers in the US (North Carolina State University, MIT Lincoln Laboratory) recruited 13 households and provided buccal samples from each occupant and dust from five predefined indoor locations. They used a software developed to permit mixture analysis and identity searching to assess whether known occupants could […]

Within a hair’s breadth–forensic identification of single dyed hair strand now possible

EurekAlert  December 9, 2020 Researchers in Japan developed a strategy for identifying criminals from a single strand of hair, leveraging the fact that hair dyes are becoming increasingly common. Their approach involves finding out if two individual strands of hair belong to the same person based on the composition of hair dye products found on them. They used surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis. SERS can easily detect the overall differences in composition between different types of hair dyes, such as permanent, semi-permanent, or natural dyes. However, it is not enough to distinguish between hair coloring products […]

New tool to combat terrorism

EurekAlert  November 19, 2020 Environmental samples serve as ideal forms of contact trace evidence as detection at a scene can establish a link between a suspect, location, and victim. Translation of these tools to forensic science remains in its infancy, due in part to the merging of traditional forensic ecology practices with unfamiliar DNA technologies and complex datasets, biomass environmental signals carried by people and objects. However, the sensitivity, and reducing cost, of MPS is now unlocking the power of both high and low biomass environmental DNA (eDNA) samples as useful sources of genetic information in forensic science. Researchers in […]