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Forensic Test Predicts Eye and Hair Color From DNA

Posted by Soulskill on from the accurate-to-some-amount-of-decimal-places dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A forensic test that has been developed to help police nab perpetrators of crimes can predict a suspect's eye color, hair color, and ethnic origin. The test's ability and the science behind it has been outlined in Forensic Science International: Genetics (abstract). Developed by Susan Walsh and other researchers from the Netherlands, Greece, and Poland, the test uses phenotypes from DNA to ... predict a suspect's appearance using 'low amounts of template DNA, as well as degraded DNA,' which means that the DNA does not need to be perfect in order for the system to read it."

19 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. We swear your honor... by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The DNA doesn't lie! Sure it was degraded and we had to amplify and replicate degraded copies.. but it said the rapist would have brown hair and blue eyes.. and look.. does the suspect not have brown hair and blue eyes?
    Later, in the jury room... DNA is always right.. GUILTY!!!

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
    1. Re:We swear your honor... by willie3204 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The OJ verdict disagrees with that line of thought

      --
      The answer to all your problems
    2. Re:We swear your honor... by Kenja · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So the question is, if the tests say he has blue eyes, but he actually has brown, can that be used as evidence in his defense? If not, then why would it be usable by the prosecution if he has blue?

      There's not much "science" in forensic science. You'll be hard pressed to find a single peer reviewed study that shows finger prints to be a valid means of identification (at least of the sort used in forensics where only a few points need to line up).

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    3. Re:We swear your honor... by Dr.+Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'll be hard pressed to find a single peer reviewed study that shows finger prints to be a valid means of identification

      challenge accepted

      http://lpr.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/2/87.short

    4. Re:We swear your honor... by Kenja · · Score: 2

      Close, but that only shows that the validation method holds up legally. It does not show that no two people in the world have the same fingerprints much less the same 2-5 whirl markers used for comparison by law enforcement.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    5. Re:We swear your honor... by Dr.+Tom · · Score: 2

      You're right.

      Not to mention that it is possible to wear fake fingertips that give you somebody else's fingerprints ...

      Also a problem with degraded DNA: if you find some DNA at the crime scene that codes for a person with blue eyes, that doesn't mean the blue-eyed DNA is related to the suspect, just that somebody with blue eyes had been there some time in the past ...

    6. Re:We swear your honor... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      So the question is, if the tests say he has blue eyes, but he actually has brown, can that be used as evidence in his defense?

      Once you catch the suspect, you can run a full DNA match. This test will only tell you how does the suspect *probably* look like. It can probably miss those features that depend on multiple genes or perhaps are influenced by some other factors or conditions, but this is for manhunts, not for the court room.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    7. Re:We swear your honor... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      You'll be hard pressed to find a single peer reviewed study that shows finger prints to be a valid means of identification

      challenge accepted

      http://lpr.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/2/87.short

      Counter example:

      In 2004, cognitive neoroscientist Itiel Dror set out to examine whether the process of fingerprint analysis, long considered one of the most reliable forms of forensic science, can be biased by the knowledge examiners have when they attempt to find a match for prints from a crime scene... Dror constructed an experiment using the case of Brandon Mayfield. Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer, was at the center of international controversy in 2004 after the FBI and an independent analyst incorrectly matched his prints to a partial print found on a bag of detonators from the Madrid terrorist bombings.

      Dror asked five fingerprint experts to examine what they were told were the erroneously matched prints of Mayfield. In fact, they were re-examining prints from their own past cases. Only one of the experts stuck by their previous judgments. Three reversed their previous decisions and one deemed them “inconclusive.”

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    8. Re:We swear your honor... by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 2

      To be fair, hair clippings wouldn't provide DNA and it would become quite obvious that they were planted when every hair found at the crime scene was found to be snipped rather than pulled/fallen out.

      You obviously haven't been to my hair salon!

      --
      Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    9. Re:We swear your honor... by MozeeToby · · Score: 2

      On the other hand, if said DNA comes from fresh blood at the crime scene, or semen, or skin flakes under the victim's nails, or [etc, etc, etc]. There are plenty of times when you can say, if not for certainty, then at least beyond a reasonable doubt, that the DNA came from the perpetrator (or at the very, very least, a witness).

    10. Re:We swear your honor... by mr100percent · · Score: 2

      Interestingly enough, at the time his defense lawyers actually tried to make the claim that perhaps some of OJ's DNA could have wafted from the test tube with his blood into the other tube containing the crime evidence. I guess the public was so new to the idea of DNA that some thought it possible.

    11. Re:We swear your honor... by renegadesx · · Score: 2

      But this... is Chewbacca. That does not make sense.

      --
      Make SELinux enforcing again!
  2. Re:Abortions ahoy! by iONiUM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, actually people may misuse this in a different way. Cosmetic abortions: aborting because the DNA in your baby seems to indicate it will grow up to be an ugly person.

  3. Re:Ethnic origins by sudden.zero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    True for the most part but now always true. Not to mention that some eye colors are getting rarer. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/world/americas/18iht-web.1018eyes.3199975.html

  4. Re:Ethnic origins by kneeslasher · · Score: 2

    Is this a joke? Have you never seen the red/blonde haired blue/green/grey eyed people in northern South Asia? Or the blonde Aborigines? Or black people with blue eyes? The iconic ancient painting of (maybe) Tocharians with red hair and blue eyes? Sure, the diversity increases in (northern) Europe, but it assuredly exists elsewhere (the Nazis had problems explaining it).

  5. Re:Abortions ahoy! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    What, gingers make you feel inferior?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  6. Hair coloring by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2

    I guess hair colouring and coloured contact lenses will be getting more popular for criminals ...

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  7. Re:A good excuse for police ethnic profiling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In other words, they now have another good reason to do something that they already had a good reason to do in the first place.

  8. Re:Abortions ahoy! by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    What, gingers make you feel inferior?

    No he's worried about the ginger postman who waved to his wife the other day,