Genetic Clues to Cause of Death?

An anonymous reader writes "Nature is reporting that a certain 'telltale genetic fingerprint' may help scientists to more accurately determine a cause of death. From the article: 'Now a team at Nagasaki University has shown that a person's own genes might help to reveal how they met their end. Kazuya Ikematsu and his colleagues anesthetized and then killed two small groups of mice, by either strangulation with a string, or by decapitation. They dissected skin samples from the animals' necks and compared the activity of a broad spectrum of genes inside the skin cells, by looking at the amount of RNA pumped out by those genes. The researchers found four genes that were more active in the strangled animals than those that had died suddenly.'"

Comments

"...by either strangulation with a string..."

[Aranth Brainfire]

Cue the Monty Python references.

seriously...

[PrinceAshitaka]

I understand that the researchers are trying to determine if a subject died by "strangulation or other means" , but here's an easy way to tell if a subject died by decapitation or strangulation without having to resort to costly genetic tests. Measure the distance between the head and neck. If d > 0 , the subject was probably decapitated. I guess this test would be useful in determining if the subject was strangulated before decapitated, but how often are the investigators wondering that.

Kinky.

[Phariom]

"Kazuya Ikematsu and his colleagues anesthetized and then killed two small groups of mice, by either strangulation with a string, or by decapitation."

Well, if his experiments don't work out, I'm sure Mr. Ikematsu could always make a few surgical alterations to himself and find gainful employment as a dominatrix for small rodents.

Detectives, rejoice!

[meringuoid]

No longer will there be any doubt over whether the murder victim was strangled or beheaded, which has in the past been a cause of great difficulty in investigations due to the lack of any very obvious physical feature that might distinguish a decapitation victim from someone who has been hanged. You'll now have access to a DNA test to put the question beyond doubt.

Isn't progress wonderful?

Re:Wrong

[Ed_1024]

I can now announce, after years of research and thousands of mice, that it is possible to differentiate between them having being killed by a blender, a hacksaw or just plain deep-frying. I am now working on staple guns, sulfuric acid and gamma rays but as yet do not have a statistically significant sample because the pet shop has run out of mice and I have had to switch to fluffy bunnies.

Re:Nature's Black Box?

[_Hellfire_]

Not to mention funny:

http://plif.andkon.com/archive/wc123.gif

Re:an argument for lamarckianism

[maxwell demon]

For mice you have to use mdb, since gdb is only the gnu debugger.