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Things You Drink Can Be Used To Track You
sciencehabit writes with an intriguing story about the potential of figuring out where people have been by examining their hair: "That's because water molecules differ slightly in their isotope ratios depending on the minerals at their source. Researchers found that water samples from 33 cities across the United State could be reliably traced back to their origin based on their isotope ratios. And because the human body breaks down water's constituent atoms of hydrogen and oxygen to construct the proteins that make hair cells, those cells can preserve the record of a person's travels. Such information could help prosecutors place a suspect at the scene of a crime, or prove the innocence of the accused." Or frame someone by slipping them water from every country on the terrorist watchlist.
I can see this science being abused. Whether your body contains a certain chemical signature or not is still circumstantial evidence, but increasingly our justice system (like many countries) are using it to give carte blanche access to a person's private information and life. Worse, if the request is later determined to have been falsified or exaggerated, the evidence gathered as a result of that request is still considered valid for the persecution of not just the original crime, but anything else uncovered as a result.
Thanks to shows like CSI and confidence in science, we want DNA samples, hair, urine, and a billion other things -- and believe that their presence somehow proves or disproves guilt. This is despite the fact that such evidence can be manufactured with ease -- the prime example being Photoshop for photographs, but virtually every technology you have around you can be used against you in some fashion or manipulated to imply or explicitly state something that is not true. Yet the courts rarely ask that samples be tested for contamination, or refuse to re-hear cases where the lab clearly and undeniably compromised the results.
It used to be that testimony was the primary vehicle in obtaining a conviction. Now we're increasingly using evidence that neither the judge, jury, defense, or even prosecution fully understands to take away other people's freedoms, sometimes under false pretext. While this particular technology is neither good nor bad, the system that will incorporate its use may be fundamentally flawed.
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I mean, sure, the bottled water will have the same signatures, but what is to say you didn't drink your own bottled water wherever you went? Or things like bottle sodas, and drinks. The best you might be able to do is say that they had drink which used water from XYZ location. It is a far stretch to say that they were in XYZ when they drank it. Heck, there are stores around me which sell bottled water from around the world, and I know I have even tried a few, but I never left my home town, yet it according to this "evidence" I have been to Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Ukraine, Ireland, and Poland...
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Not true. The fact that the oxygen isotopes are bound into hair means that we have some kind of a time reference.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
A major component of most things you drink is water.
Most things you drink aren't bottled in your home town. (Including bottled water, if you're into that sort of thing.)
If somehow this technique were to be come a common defense tool, then someone planning a crime could shrewdly stockpile tap water from a city with a distinct signature that isn't where the crime will take place.
It might be marginally useful as a tool in a civil case if you want to convince the jury where someone was (but probably not if you want to convince them where he/she wasn't); I would hope it would be considered too inconclusive to be used in a criminal trial.
Simply substitute Po-210 for something not deadly and you have a wonderful tracking mechanism.
Ummm, No see Po-210 is rare as opposed to say water which covers most of the earth's surface.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Bottled Water anyone?
How much water is used to make soda ? beer ? Juice ?
Will water move through beef or other imported vegetables and be tested in our urine?
There are too many disparate sources for water or "Second Hand Water" for this to ever hold up in court. I hope.
One sec... knock on the door...
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Don't forget that the foods you eat were likely grown in some other region and shipped to your supermarket. Maybe they'll think you're a Colombian druglord because of your morning coffee.
I'd say the "identifying where a bottle of water is from" part may have some scientific validity. Assuming that the isotope ratios in the oxygen molecules in your blood match the water you're drinking is more dubious - you're also breathing air, which may have different ratios, plus your body would also be exchanging liquids between cells and bloodstream, so there's a long slow storage period. How that relates by the time the stuff gets out to your hair is even more speculative. The real question is how much was speculation by the scientists, and how much by the reporter.
But yeah, terrorists are going to start drinking bottled water, and the real trick is that you'll be able to identify terrorists by all the water bottles in the trash. Or, wait, was that terrorists or tourists? Hard to tell the difference sometimes...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What I don't understand is why any self-respecting scientist or engineer would work on something so blatantly geared toward the eventual and haphazard restriction of human liberty. Look around you, folks -- you're creating the police state.
quia potentia mens mentis