Slashdot Mirror
Nanotechnology Reveals Hidden Fingerprints
valiko75 writes "Hidden fingerprints can now be revealed quickly and reliably thanks to two developments in nanotechnology.
The thing is that they have invented an easier way to reveal hidden fingerprints, but the explanation is rather vague. The main point is that the experiments are not very stable at the moment, but with its development this technology will probably help in discovering many criminal mysteries."
I don't recall seeing this in CSI.
"[...]but with its development this technology will probably help in discovering many criminal mysteries."
If the detectives in your town need a fingerprint just to discover a mystery is afoot, move. Call me when science is able to figure out a way to SOLVE crimes using fingerprints, then I'll be impressed.
Don't worry if you're a kleptomaniac, you can always take something for it.
"the explanation is rather vague" The explanation involves detailed descriptions of the chemicals and chemical effects that reveal the fingerprints. So it's not a vague, but a rahter exact description of the mechanism (if you know a bit about chemistry). The black colored silver stuff is silveroxide by the way, if anyone wants to know.
Since it will make it possible to retrieve more fingerprints, will it also make it more likely police detectives will try to retrieve more and more suspect prints that are damaged and distorted or not fully imprinted? While fingertip patterns might be truly unique, our means of distinguishing them by the residue they leave behind IS NOT. Usually only a few prominent points where there are easy to identify features like bifurcations, loops, and whorls are used, not the whole print. Where these features are relatively positioned one against the other is what is stored in fingerprint databases. When you have something like 8 points that match it is considered a "GOOD" match, but they are hardly the statistical homerun that things like DNA testing are. In some cases as few as five match points are used (I don't have the numbers, but this is like the lottery, much easier to match 5 even if not a winner -- much, much easier). Fingerprints might be a good way to get a good first pass for suspects, but in general the public has way too much confidence in how well the retrieved prints identify culprits.
Letter To Iran
This is nifty chemistry, but nanotech it ain't. Molecular nanotechnology is precise control of matter at a nanoscale level. This tech is extremely imprecise at that level.. the particles, nanoscale size or not, are let go willy-nilly into a solution to bond with other things as they will. Sounds like straight up chemistry to me.
A nanotech version of this might be something like a patch with an array of nanoscale robotic 'arms' on one side, each holding onto one of these nanoparticles. The patch would get slapped on a surface they wanted a print off of, chemical sensors would react to the fingerprint and deposit their nanoparticle. You could build in a computer interface and upload the results directly into a computer, too.
Now give that 'patch' legs and make it self mobile, and a way to resupply the gold nanoparticles, basic AI to hunt down most likely spots for prints, etc... now we have a police crime nanobot that's worth being called nanotech.