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DNA Extraction From Fingerprints
Myriad writes "A Canadian scientist has developed a new way of gathering DNA evidence for analysis using fingerprints. The new test can extract DNA in 15 minutes - even from a print stored for many years and in varying conditions. The patented extraction technique consistently produces ~10 nanograms of DNA. Analysis generally requires 5-10 nanograms, although it is possible with as little as 0.1 nanogram."
...as I think it will seriously make finding the guilty easier, and seperating the innocent from the guilty. If I'm not mistaken, it currently requires a judge's order in the united states to collect a DNA sample. Now all you have to do is dust something touched by the suspect to get a DNA sample.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
You always have the problem of getting it admitted in a US court. Expect big battles over this. For example, if the judge isn't the most tech-savvy judge around, someone could bullshit him/her into believing that the DNA samples are unreliable. Also, you have the BigBrother concern. However, fingerprints are already considered uniquely identifying. The only added problem w/ getting DNA from fingerprints is technology that is still years away, if it even comes to the market -- predicting people's characteristics/future death from DNA. However, the only reason to get the DNA from the fingerprint and not from the sweat that the person left, or the hairs that the person left, etc., is because of the storage factor. So, while people worry about their DNA being extracted from a fingerprint, they should be more worried about all the hair follicles and skin cells they are leaving behind that also give away their DNA.
this brings up scary issues...think how many times you've been finger printed...cashing checks, getting a driver's liscense...many people bring their children in for fingerprinting, in case of kidnapping or incase the child somehow gets lost. I, and many of those parents would never think to let the government have their or their child's DNA on file. could the government use this technique to start on their national DNA database? scary thought...
Fingerprints are created by cellular residue rubbing off from the skin, and this process collects these in order to extract the DNA. However, why would this be labeled exclusively in use for fingerprints? Couldn't the process be used for almost any surface that a person has had direct contact with? This might also have many problems with contamination with the DNA of other cellular residue.
I have to say I gave up on any thoughts of privacy not long ago with the way technology is moving towards nabbing bits of DNA. This is just another jump forwards.
Not only can DNA be grabbed from a scene, but when cross referenced with the fingerprints that it was derived from, an ID can be made -without having you there- to compare from.
OK, so it's also possible that there could be contaminated DNA on your fingerprints, but all the same it looks like it'll be a strong enough match to be able to give whoever is analysing the DNA a bigger lead than just a fleck of skin or hair left at a scene.
If you already have the fingerprint, why do you need the DNA? Most criminals (or at least those arrested and brought to jail) are processed via fingerprints and that is what's stored.
/me puts on his tin foil gloves
Does this indicate a move toward DNA databases instead of fingerprint ones?
Will this save any time or effort on the part of law enforcement agencies?
Will newborns have their DNA sampled shortly after birth?
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
Yeah, we all know what the source of the DNA is on Slashdot users' fingerprints...
"Derp de derp."
fingerprints are already each unique why do we need to get dna out of them?
Now we're going to need tinfoil gloves to go with our hats!
This technology can be and is used for more than just fingerprints. The article says that this technology isn't new - the Canadian just came up with a better way of doing it. As far as contamination, other cellular residue is easily spun out, you buy kits for that, that part is fast and cheap. The main thing I would be worried about is the purity of the sample as far as number of sources of DNA. Lots of people touch alot of the same things.
So now I will have to wait for 15 minutes before the data-centre door opens?? ;-)
This could possibly lead to more false positives than now. Say you try to help a stab victim. If you touch the person your DNA will be on them and it's possible that you could be implicated for the murder.
Including the EFF, it seems. First, what's the big deal about having your DNA on file? It's just a blueprint for the body - individuality comes from the mind. So "the government" has a DNA listing for you...damn, there goes my your career as a rapist. Second, if you don't want your DNA cataloged don't leave it laying around. Wear gloves. And a hat. And a suit to catch falling skin flakes and eyelashes. And sneezes. And don't get arrested or take any jobs where a fingerprint is required.
Like in the next 5 to 10 years, the world will be run by thoughtful people who won't use technology like this to keep people under the thumb of government and industry.
Once you gain sufficient control over people you cross the line that divides governance from ownership. And I don't think human beings are sufficiently moral creatures to be trusted with the opportunity to own other human beings, whether it's outright ownership, or ownership implied in so many ways through the laws and practices of a society.
Most people who go into the whole Big-Brother is out to get us type of mob-attitude don't think of that fact when they think of fingerprinting. However, I agree, DNA is better than fingerprinting b/c the matches are more reliable, and the technology for potential misuse is years off, if not decades.
2 days is breakneck speed for Slashdot.
2 weeks is "normal" for slashdot.
You can't plant a fingerprint. But you *can* plant somebody's DNA.
Then the prosecutor does his 1 in 10,000,000,000 lecture to the jury, and he's guilty!
Nevermind the fact that the DNA evidence could have been easily planted, if not at the crime scene, then at the lab.
We've seen this before. And not just with OJ.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Well, once insurance companies get records of DNA and use it to make policy decisions it will really hurt the basis of health insurance. Perhaps it is time to think of national health insurance?
Did anyone read this story and immediately think of how they just vacuum the entire crime scene and run every piece of debris through an instant DNA test? The first time I saw that I thought it was 50+ years away; now I would be suprised not to see it within a decade or two.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Why couldn't it just be released for free? Then donations could be solicited. It worked for xiph. So now if you happen to work with DNA evidence you have one more patent mine in the minefield. Yuck.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Racial identity is almost meaningless these days -- most 'black' people have significant 'european' descent via rape of slaves; Colin Powell, for example is at least 1/4 irish... furthermore, physical appearance is probably a overall effect of quite a few genitic markers, so, it would be a combination of hair thickness, nose wideness, skin pigmentation, bone structure, and hundereds of overall factors which would be needed to identify a given 'race'
current dna testing relies on "marker" regions which are supposed to be present in a unique combination for each individual. however, because this is not a whole sequence comparison, there is a small chance of a false positive error but smaller than that of false positives using fingerprints. Indeed the marker regions were selected because they were (relatively) fast to test and did not give away information about the suspect (eg. race or eye colour, although one of the markers was later found to be linked to diabetes).
i think that this technology will eventually find its way into our courtrooms, and this is good. what would be bad is if we thought that any technology was so perfect that we didn't need a trial and we could go out hunting bad guys on their dna evidence alone.
there is no substitute for a public trial where all the evidence gets laid out on the table and a reasonable judge ensures that all parties are treated fairly. if that doesn't happen for the least of our citizens, then it's time to go find another country to live and work in. I've moved countries twice, and i'm always watching with my overnight bag under my desk.
beyond crime there are benign uses for dna identification. the Army DNA registry would also serve as a way to identify the dead, who have been blown up beyond recognition. this gives valuable closure for families and loved ones.
paternity testing now requires that you have a live man to take a sample from. with this new tech you could get the dna fingerprint from the inside of a locket or something.
the way i see it, leaving dna is like a form of subconscious, automatic grafitti. we are always tagging our environment with the words "i wuz here."
it's just that these days, there might be people around who care to read it.
could the government use this technique to start on their national DNA database? scary thought...
Wouldn't a national DNA database be a good thing? How many crimes go unsolved even when DNA is found but no match is made? How many people have been released from death row because of advances in DNA tech that didn't even exist when they were wrongly put away? More information is a good thing, people!
Sure.... a few people may misuse it. Maybe my insurance company will raise my tab because they see I carry a gene for heart disease but why shouldn't they? They're gambling that I don't get sick. They're proving a service. If you think they shouldn't be able to ask for a DNA scan you probably think they have no business asking for your family history or whether you smoke. Please!
No pun intended, but this is really why the fight over who owns your personal data is so fookin' important. In ten or twenty years, the decisions made today about who owns your medical records, which databases can be legally connected or correlated and who the FBI has to talk to to see that data are going to vitally effect our civil rights on a scale we can't quite imagine.
It's not unreasonable to imagine that in 20 years it will be as easy to pick up your identity from a retinal scan, a fingerprint or even trace DNA is it currently is to pick up your identity from your credit card or your supermarket discount card, and if we don't have more stringent policies around handling of personal data we're all screwed. There's no place to hide when your body constantly sheds ID packets. Your cells are you.
Identity Commons is trying to get some stuff off the ground using a "governance-based" identity system: where the people who's identities are being stored actually get to vote on how the system is run.
It's an interesting idea, and might (in the long run) offer some answers to that age old question: who watches the watchmen?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I'm certanly no expert, but I understand it's extreamly more difficult to prove guilt based on DNA evidence. It's more often used to prove innocence or provide that shadow of a doubt. This technology could greatly help in lowering the chance of someone being falsely prosocuted for a crime.
Teach someone to use the net and they won't bother you for weeks; show them Slashdot and you may never see them again.
Nimrod. Try posting something original.
My point is that it is never the technology itself that is bad. It's surprising that /.ers who can see this so clearly in the case of p2p are the ones clamoring against it whenever anything infringes privacy. Don't oppose technology, oppose oppressive governments and mega-corps.
Oooh, insurance is so evil. Guess what, if you hate it, don't buy it! Save your money for your catastrophic illnesses so you can pay it out of pocket, for the car accident that you cause.
Insurance is SUPPOSED to exist to pay for catastrophic unknown and unexpected situations, not as a crutch to pay for every little thing that arises. Insurance is expensive and underwriting is strict because of attitudes like yours.
Chris
Can a person claim exclusive copy rights on their own DNA? Google turns up some firms offering such protection to celebrities. Are they just a scam? Could gene sequencers be classified as circumvention devices under DMCA?
Yep. I think so.
It's called CODIS (COmbined DNA Index System) and it's used to cross reference DNA in unsolved cases throughout the country. Criminal DNA samples are taken and entered into the system. The biggest reason that the system doesn't get more matches (and it does get matches - the press conferences in these cases just don't mention CODIS) is that most jurisdictions are still using different tests (that could have changed by now) and that the backlog of samples to process and enter into the system is so huge that it would take years just to catch up on the California data only, even if nothing new was added.
My $0.02 is that this is a great system to have around, but I'm sure that everyone else will have their own opinions on that.
NEW YORK, July 31 (UPI) -- Even if the only evidence forensic analysts can pull from a crime scene is a fingerprint smudged beyond recognition, a new technique developed by Canadian scientists soon could harvest enough DNA from the print to produce a genetic identity.
The novel system can extract DNA in only 15 minutes, even if a print has been stored for a year. Scientists expect the invention to help crime-fighters solve mysteries, and already are in talks with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In addition, researchers predict the technology could be at least twice as cheap as existing DNA collection methods.
"If you wanted to use blood as a source of DNA, you have fear of contamination, people who don't want to give it, storage issues, and you have to sign a lot of paperwork to get it," research scientist Maria Viaznikova of the Ottawa University Heart Institute in Canada told United Press International. "We can now have DNA reliably and simply with our method."
Viaznikova said her team's method consistently yields 10 billionths of a gram of DNA, on average, from a single fingerprint. The findings were revealed at the American Society for Microbiology's nanotechnology conference in New York earlier this month. Although 10 "nanograms" might not sound like much, for DNA analysis, even 0.1 nanogram is enough, Viaznikova said. "Scientists try not to use less than 5 to 10 nanograms, so this is fine."
She said forensic scientists have known for about five years that fingerprints contain DNA. However, commonly used extraction techniques need several hours or even days of lab work. "We can do it in 15 minutes," she added.
The new extraction technique is under patent. When compared with existing methods, "it is at least as twice less expensive, maybe more," Viaznikova said.
The most immediate application such a technique could find is with forensics, said molecular biologist Margaret Wallace of John Jay College in New York and one-time DNA analyst for the city's chief medical examiner's office.
"It could save a lot of time, particularly given we have this huge backlog on DNA that needs to be analyzed," Wallace told UPI. "There are hundreds of thousands of samples that need to be looked at now."
Wallace still wants to know how well the process works on fingerprints gleaned from a variety of surfaces and kept in a variety of temperature and humidity conditions. "It's also possible that some people leave more DNA in their prints than others," she said.
Because the method is so simple and cheap, with far less overhead required than needle-based DNA sampling, experts say this could help make DNA gathering a commonplace activity -- thereby also raising privacy issues.
"DNA is unique, extremely revealing about you and your family members," privacy specialist Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C., told UPI. "This advance really highlights the need for laws to protect the privacy in the face of these kinds of technologies."
Stanley said because genetics experts have told him it inevitably will become easier to test DNA, "we need legal frameworks to figure out how to protect privacy in the face of this." For example, silicone chips from biophysicist Stephen Quake's lab at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, could in the next 10 years sequence an entire person's genetic code cheaply and in a few days, he noted.
"I don't think anybody objects to samples from crime scenes. I think using DNA to catch murderers is a fine thing," Stanley said. "But we need to be cognizant of greater implications. We're going to be facing issues about how to keep DNA private from lawyers, governments, insurance companies, even nosy neighbors. It raises issues of employment discrimination, because employers have a natural incentive to hire healthy workers, and always have an incentive to discriminate against you by DNA, as long as health insurance is provided by the workplace. Luckily, OSDN showed great leadership in
http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/slope.htm
With a process of this sensitivity, accidental contamination may become a serious problem. Did that billionth of a gram of DNA come from the perp's fingerprint or did it float into the room from somewhere else?
But maybe you were just trolling.
bla
Well, actually it is -- okay, maybe not evil, but unworkable. The whole idea of insurance is based on the assumption that bad things can't be predicted in advance. As medical science and DNA techniques become more widely used and reliable, this assumption becomes less and less true. Eventually every genetic disease will be predictable with 100% accuracy, at which point health insurance will be useless, because the only people who can get it will be those who don't need it. At that point, I think universal health coverage will be the only workable option.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It's black because it would allow an uncorrupted justice system access to a tool by which to solve the crime you committed and convict you so easily that you might not find the guilt and terror of having embezzled a thousand dollars so great that you use your second chance to retreat to a community in the midwest where you devote the rest of your life to helping the poor and needy instead of wearing orange for ten, long and meaningless years.
It's white because, employed judiciously, it might make fewer people laugh and weep at the Texas justice system.
It's Black because, with it, all anyone who wanted to frame you for something in a cheap movie plot (or in real life for that matter) would have to do is to get hold of anything you've ever handled at any time and plant it at the scene of a bank robbery, a terrorist hideout, or a really wet, really nasty murder.
As in, 'Yes, your honor, he is a criminal genius, a modern-day Fu-Manchu or Moriarty, who covered his tracks so well that it required all the power of forensic science to find that he had even been to the scene of the crime. The proof, however, though miniscule, is incontrovertible...'
It's white because with the government going further and further towards genetic fingerprinting and/or trying rapist's dna in absentia, it's use might have great social implications. The paranoia it engenders in clever people might make even the stupidest loser object to it so strongly that everyone agrees that the social cost of the technology exceeds its benefits. Used to review the judicial record (we're back to Texas again!), it might show a such a scary number of false prison terms and false executions, at in a better world, the evidence it provided might end the death penalty.
And you could go on and on and on...
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
The accuracy of fingerprints is a BIG myth. Fingerprint analysis can be EXTREMELY unreliable. Even with good prints, the minimum number of points necessary for a match vary drastically from country to country (some require 30+ points while others use as little as 6 or 7). Even within a single country there can be different standards. The FBI for example as NO minimum number, your local police department may have have a different standard. I don't know about you but, I don't want some lazy or over-worked CSI (settling for a 5 or 6 point match) swearing in court that those were my prints lifted from the scene. It sure would be nice if my lawyer could argue that the actual DNA lifted from those prints didn't match the finger print ID. Juries are filled with people just like you (and me till I learnt better) that believe in the near infallibility of fingerprints. It makes me wonder, how many people put away solely on fingerprint evidence actually belong there.
If it is possible to test with 0.1, why do they generally use 5-10?
I'm pretty sure photographic evidence exists of the Jack The Ripper killings from the late 19th century, and maybe some physical evidence still exists as well. I'm not up to date, but I think it's currently pretty well accepted that the killer was one of about 7 individuals. Furthermore, most/all of these individuals were well known identities, and I'd expect their descendants would be easy to track down.
If they could extract DNA evidence from artifacts of the Ripper killings, they could extract DNA from descendants of the 7 suspects, and try to match them. Maybe some of these descendants might not be willing to participate, but all you'd need would be one person from the suspect's direct bloodline to provide enough evidence for a DNA match.
This could be used to identify who the Ripper was, even 115 or so years after the event.
Ditto for many other unsolved cases, but the Ripper would be high profile and long enough ago that no-one's likely to be embarrassed by the outcomes.
Call me crazy, but raise your hand if you saw Gattaca and thought "Gee, that's a bright and well adjusted future. What do you mean Dystopian?" I sure as hell did.
~
If you need me, I'll be hanging my computer from the
Large databases are being built up of fingerprint data and now DNA data. The acuracy of this data is at best questionable. Fingerprints are measured at 16 points. From this you do not get 16^16.
I think that if you measured fingerprints to an infinite acuracy you may find the theoretical infinate number of fingerprints required to sustain the myth that no 2 fingerprints are the same but here in the real world we measure a finite number of points and therefore have a finite number of prints and as the database reaches that number there must be mistakes.
The mistakes are already happening with DNA and because this evidence is perported assumed to be infallible innocent people are being arrested.
If this evidence was only used to support other evidence I would see it as a good thing but when it is used as the only evidence then it is very bad.
I think that in the future this DNA witch hunt will be seen for what it is but for now innocent people will be caught up with the guilty.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
...your next door neighbour finds out you just made their 19 year old virgin into a been-round-the-block-a-few-times then, right?
If you don't think that any government agent with their fingers in that DNA pie won't make use of it for fun or personal interest, you're sorely mistaken.
I only worked for a computer department at a college, and it'd impress me if I saw a single person who worked there that didn't take a personal look into the files and info of any user that interested them.
Now, just imagine if you're a telemarketer, and your son just got an internship at a government office. How much business do you think you could make getting a genetic profile of people from the city? Imagine if you KNEW everyone in the city that was a sucker, or was diabetic, going to have a heart attack, etc, etc. Well, as a business owner, I'm palpitating at the cheaper, directed advertising opportunities, but as a consumer, I'm sweating bullets.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
there is no substitute for a public trial where all the evidence gets laid out on the table and a reasonable judge ensures that all parties are treated fairly. if that doesn't happen for the least of our citizens, then it's time to go find another country to live and work in. I've moved countries twice, and i'm always watching with my overnight bag under my desk.
don't forget to pack your toothbrush
Now they know it's my pr0n from my prints on the magazine, my final product isn't necessary anymore.
Learn something new.
I saw a news program (sorry, don't remember which) that pointed out the following:
1. The point standard used to check fingerprints is inconsistent and varies from country to country. IIRC, the US has the lowest point standard. In the US, the legal system doesn't require that the analysis presented in a trial meet any particular point count standard.
2. Contrary to popular belief (and what passes for drama on television crime shows), when the FBI pulls up records in their fingerprint databases, the fingerprints themselves are checked manually by, what else, a finger print expert. IIRC, it takes several hours to perform a single check.
3. The FBI believes its own experts to be the gold-plate standard. Court cases, however, do not rely on expert testimony from the FBI. The subject of the news program I watched was the conviction of an individual who was convicted based solely on on expert testimony from a few local "Mayberry RFD Crime Unit" type officers. The individual convicted had already spent several years in jail before the prints were shown to the FBI who considered the analysis used as laughable.
4. There is a national standards body in the U.S. that certifies individuals as fingerprint experts. Unlike in the Microsoft MCSE program, if you fail the test once, you fail for life. Small wonder that very very few so-called fingerprint experts are ever certified.
Given just these facts, I'd suggest that DNA evidence is to be trusted more. Doesn't make these new developments any less scary, though.
but i wish they would develop a DNA test that can give you results faster than 1-2 days.
If they can cut it down to a couple minutes or even a couple hours that would be fantastic.
DNA extracted from the region of a fingerprint does not prove that the DNA came from the fingerprint.
Residual DNA coats every surface and depending on the environmental conditions, whether it is inside or outside exposed to the sun, many other sequences will be present.
Current sampling and extraction techniques can not avoid this contamination and if your favorite hangout turns out to be a murder scene, well you are in trouble. While control samples taken at the scene in areas where 'no fingerprints' occur can be taken to test background DNA, it certainly is not foolproof.
Additionally, races and skin types slough skin at different rates and have significant oil-content differences, so there will also likely be a discrepancy in who gets caught. tough luck.
and it should have been posted under "privacy" (or the dangerously increasing lack thereof).
Is it fascism yet?
There are DNA traces from more than one person a phone for instance ? of course all I know about DNA is from watching CSI
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Americans have to be finger printed to get a driver's license or cash a check/cheque?
What an odd land of the free!
How does one avoid the problems of contamination of the samples with such miniscule amounts?what if my hair or skin cells were blown in?
Wanted : A Signature.
... we have a situation where only 0.000000001% of the people involved actually understand the Science - the rest just assumes "oh - they are probably right" - but if they are not, or have a hidden agenda.... don't let them tell you that one man can't make a difference...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I mean DNA extraction from crime scenes is already routine (for serious crimes). Of course we already also have the techology to sequence DNA and identify the genes. I wonder how long before they can use that information to build a computer model of the donor's expected physical appearance? It can't be that far off.
;o)
Then eventually there will be portable devices, routinely carried by police officers, which upon "tasting" a fingerprint or a discarded hair follicle or the like, will be able within a matter of seconds to estimate the suspect's appearance, display a picture and automatically broadcast it to all other officers in the vicinity.
Looks like "Minority Report" didn't even scratch the surface of where we're headed.
Of course we can expect criminals to respond by using "glove" and "hat" technology to foil the detectors and "disguise" technology to evade capture
ends up on an episode of CSI: Miami :)
Now, just because one has a copy of someone's DNA, that isn't enough. One diploid copy of human DNA is about 6.6 picograms. If that copu of the genome has been fragmented in one of the regions being amplified, the reaction won't work. True, you could get down into the 50 to 100picogram range for input DNA, but what you're doing is taking the statistics and throwing them out the window. Wheras the kits themselves give odds of matching a random person in the 1 in hundreds of millions to 1 in billions, if you're looking at say 100 copies of degraded DNA (0.6ng, or 600pg), you may only have on average 5 or so copies of intact DNA from the given amplification targets. Now the odds that you only see one allele (say from mom'a side) goes WAY up, because random luck might have caused only 1 or no copies of the other allele (from dad) to survive. The result is, you get an amplification that looks like the person has all one sized fragments for that region, whereas they may really have 2.
Don't get me wrong, I think this technology is probably tremendously useful, and can offer the ability to type people for all sorts of things, such as forensics. I merely wanted to point out some of the potential limitations of such a technique if the sample hasn't been stored well. I have a hard time believing DNA is super stable in black ink...
Just my random thoughts...
I have a hard time believing that they can extract 10 ng of DNA from a fingerprint. A diploid human cell as 6x10e9 bp of DNA. One bp is 660 daltons. Calculating backward, 6x10e9 bp works out to being 6.6 pg of DNA.
So for them to extract 5-10 ng of DNA from a fingerprint, a fingerprint needs to contain between 1000 - 2000 cells. I work with epithelial cells, and a 1000 - 2000 cells is a fairly large patch of cells.
So either they mean that they get 10 ng of PCR amplified DNA (which is possible), but then is hardly representative of the entire genome, or they are using fingerprints from people who are really shedding skin!
I think you've taken a lot of urban legend and stuffed it into one big slashdot post.
DNA analysis by RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism) is very, very accurate. This is how it works:
On your DNA, you've got lots of little molecules. These molecules form a sequence. Every so often, there will be certain repeated sequences by chance.
Restriction Enzymes locate these sequences and go *snip*! They break down the DNA at these specific sequence points.
The DNA is then run through a gel - the smaller fragments go farther through the gel. The gel is then analyzed for the particular pattern of fragments in the gel.
In case you didn't catch the variabilty associated with all of this - these restriction fragments snip only at repeated sequences, repeated sequences which occur at random in our DNA. The chances of two people having exactly the same combination of restriction-snipped fragments is so so so so *so* small it is difficult to express in numbers - think about what you're saying.
There ARE cases of fallible DNA tests - DNA tests that aren't done properly, etc. But few people are ever jailed wrongly because of properly collected DNA evidence.
My biggest issue with DNA evidence is that it only proves that the suspect was at the scene, not that he commited the crime.
What if I touch a gun and 5 min later you kill someone with it. They might find my DNA but your fingerprints. If they are really good they will find both sources. Seems like resonable doubt to me. If they just go by finger print, closed case. Guess what I am saying is that they might find a bunch of DNA and have to release guilty people.
Heh. The thing about insurance that IS evil is the very nature of the arrangement. Paying the monthly premium on (for example) catastrophic health insurance is like placing a long-shot bet. What makes it evil is that you're betting that you might get sick/hurt, and then doing everything in your power to see to it that you lose the bet! Is that twisted, or what?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
You say:
This is only true if you get a sufficiently large number of fragments. If you're analyzing someone's entire genome, of course you're right -- the only possible way to get an identical "DNA fingerprint" is on identical twins. But in fact the number of fragments analyzed is fairly small, in the thousands; which means it's possible to get the same analysis out of several million unrelated people, and a much smaller number of closely related people. Considering how many crimes are committed by one family member against another, this is a real concern.
I'm all for DNA analysis as a forensic tool, since it's currently the most accurate tool we have for placing a suspect at the scene of a crime. But it's a long way from perfect. Presumably, as the technology improves and it becomes practical to analyze larger sequences faster, it will get better.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Now they claim they can get DNA from these fingerprints. Methinks it's more like "we need to convince the courts that the evidence is foolproof, and people think DNA is foolproof, so we'll say we can get DNA from the fingerprints".
If you are working with such small samples with nothing exta to verify against, how do you know you got a good sample? You don't. And the older the sample, or more public the collection location, the more like that there will be contamination. Reasonable doubt. Defendant Aquitted. Case Closed.
not getting into what I do in my profession, this is almost completely wrong. A lot more goes into a police investigation than just the dna evidence. If that were true, your grandmother and my sister who touched the same steel bat in the sports store could be implicated if that bat were ever used to beat the tar out of someone.
Sorry to have to correct you, but that statement of yours isn't very accurate.
I really have no idea how the "wet sciences" work...just curious.
Advice: on VPS providers
The amount of residual human DNA (at the 10 nanogram level) in any area where humans transit or live is very high. It would be very easy to miss a critical piece of DNA which may be of microscopic size. Consequently the technology would be of questionable utility for use other than as corroboration in a court of law.
Even the above definition of "the entire crime scene" is fuzzy; expanding that area increases the likelihood of finding additional DNA by a factor proportional to at least the area and possibly to the volume of the space investigated.
The technology could also be defeated by dumping DNA from other sources at the crime scene or by dumping enzymes that break down DNA and render it useless. This has been done before.
Jim hates Marty. Marty is dating the woman Jim has loved from afar. Nevermind that Jim has serious impaired hygiene and social skills and can't hold down a job, Marty, in Jim's mind, is evil. And Sue, the woman Jim's solo love life revolves around, must be saved from Marty.
Even if it means she must die.
And so Jim plans it carefully. He sits outside Marty's house, recording his schedule. Then one day, while Marty is at work, Jim breaks in. He's careful to wear uber-clean clothes, bought but never worn before, broken out of the package and put on in Jim's backyard just prior to breaking in so there's little DNA on the outside.
His sole target: Marty's hair brush.
Marty comes home, finds his door has been forced. Nothing appears to be missing. Perhaps Marty reports the crime, perhaps not. Since there are no fingerprints and nothing stolen or destroyed, the case is immediately dropped into the "Yeah, Whatever" file at the police station. No one ever notices that the hair brush has less hair in it than before.
A month later, enough time to make the two events seem disconnected, the police are again talking to Marty, but this time it's in connection with the death of Sue.
The gory details are not necessary. Suffice to say that Jim was cold, vicious, and meticulous. Sue never had a chance. And the only hard evidence left at the scene is the hair clutched in Sue's cold fist: Marty's hair.
DNA is trusted explicitly. The jury can easily picture Sue fighting for her life. And Marty, gentle and loving man with the ring he would propose to Sue with sitting in his pocket on the day of his arrest, is now on death row in Texas for a crime he didn't commit.
Marty's guilt twists his mind and pushes him further towards the edges of society. He eventually dies in a roach-infested hotel surrounded by goatse porn and empty beer bottles, having never confessed his horrible crime.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Don't think someone could get your DNA? Do this: turn your keyboard upside down, keys facing downward, and smack the side of it a couple of times. That crud that fell out? Mixed in with the crumbs and dead bugs is your hair and dandruff. Now how easy was that?
Of course, nothing fell out of mine when I did that. I'm meticulously clean!!
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Twice less expensive? I'm ashamed that he is canadian.
Tragek
Penny says to the dog: That's not a person, that's a bacteria! Let's stake out the restrooms. I'll get the ladies room and you get the men's room. Watch for people who don't remember to wash their hands after using the toilet.
Eat at Joe's.
Did dinosaurs leave fingerprints?
On the slightly more serious side, I wonder if this advances technologies used in getting intact DNA from smaller samples of older stuff, with the eventual aim of getting enough to clone something that's not around anymore.
Here are a few links supporting the idea that usable DNA evidence can be obtained from hair:0 /3-16.h tml1 11.ht mlw ww.forensic.gov.uk/forensic/conference/pap ers/hair_samples.pdf
;)
http://biology.usgs.gov/pr/newsrelease/200
http://www.nctimes.net/news/2002/20020627/11
http://expertpages.com/news/dna2.htm
http://
Oh yes and here's a rather amusing one
http://www.rense.com/general9/ydna.htm
Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea. It appears that DNA (well, mtDNA actually) from human hairs is difficult to use for conclusive identification, but it can still be useful. IANAL, but it seems to me that it should be possible to use such evidence in support of other evidence or to get a warrant to gather more reliable DNA samples. The same should apply to DNA gathered from fingerprints, which I would expect to be similarly decayed.
not seperate
separate
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?separate
BAH!
A lot of people aren't thinking this through. They aren't saying they can extract DNA from an image, fax, photograph, or digitization of a fingerprint. They're saying they can extract DNA from the fingerprint itself, because of residue left from the actual finger. This isn't high-tech palmreading.
skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
The application of this is usefull in that smudged fingerprints and even ones partially wiped off can be used to ID the killer. This will probobly get a few convictions in old cases, but this can also be used to proove people inocent. If you can use this to show the person sitting in jail did not touch the murder weapon it would be a great boon. It is not even necessary for there to be a clean fingerprint. Personally I like how new technology exposes miscariges of justice. On a cautionary note, gov/law enforcement could always try and abuse this if we let them. However the reason we are not living in a police state is not for lack of technology that would make it possible.
...
Sidenote obosrvation warning getting oftopic:
There is an interesting trend I am finding in peoples interests in criminal cases and the scientific process. For instance the volume of Televisions shows that contain not just a story but a logical scientific proces of how a mystery was solved. Old/cold cases that are solved are usually done so with some not obviouse insight from an obscure clue. Thus television producers has resolved to using actual cases to provide real content to the shows, borrowing from the creativity of the detctives working on the cases. After a show on the discovery channel they actually asked viewers for cold cases that where solved in their community. This article being posted in my view part of this trend.
other examples:
CSI, Law and Order, Cold Case Files
... make sure your DNA is everywhere. Overload the system. Mail your dust to strangers. Travel lots. Touch everything in sight. Every time a test is done, you show up. Eventually they'll filter you out and voila! Invisibility through visibility.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
But health insurance pays for a lot more situations that ARE expensive but AREN'T related to genes - like childbirth and appendicitis, for instance.
:)
:) I'm also an insurance agent for one of the top 5 companies in the USA.
If you think about it, insurance is similar to credit cards...people COULD save their money and buy everything from their checking account, but they don't...they buy on their credit card and make monthly payments on that. Insurance works the same way
You're talking to a future CPCU (www.aicpcu.org), btw
Chris
Sorry, Gattaca got it wrong.. Huxley got it right: genetic research will be used to produce lower IQ humans. The ruling class fears a broad base of highly intelligent, educated humans.
They haven't had much to worry about up to now.
Be very skeptical of any news article on a scientific subject for which you can't find the underlying scientific article. That's not the way scientists are supposed to announce things, and often it means that their claims are vaporware.
I am unable to find any scientific articles which have been published about this technique, and from the point of view of a molecular biologist there are a number of huge problems that would have to be addressed, not the least of which is that your skin is covered with enzymes that quickly degrade DNA and RNA...
DNA profiling is much more definitive than you have described. First of all, DNA statistics are measured within various racial populations. For example, the spread of a certain marker varies depending on ethnicity--black, white, asian, etc. The suspect obviously belongs in a certain category and thus alters the probability of a false match. Furthermore, pretend that the chances are one in a thousand of another match. (This is far smaller than DNA routinely yields.) Yes, in the United States, there are probably thousands of "matches", but how many are those described by eyewitnesses and other evidence?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/