forensic science

Cropped Oryoku Maru Aerial Photo Former Us Naval Station Olongapo On 15 December 1944

Pentagon Begins Search for Remains of WWII POWs Lost on Japanese ‘Hell Ship’

A team of 15 specialist divers dove into waters off the coast of the Philippines last month—initiating a forensic recovery operation that one Pentagon scientist said could take "months or years."

Human History Matthew Phelan Mar 13

Meet the Sexome: The Bacteria in Our Junk That We Swap During Sex

New research shows that we regularly transfer traces of our genital microbiomes to sexual partners—a discovery that could someday be used as a crime-solving tool.

Biology Ed Cara Feb 12

Virginia Cops Used Fake DNA Docs to Coerce Confessions. Somehow, That’s Legal

Police reportedly used fake lab certificates at least five times over four years to coerce confessions and secure convictions.

Tech News Mack DeGeurin Jan 13

Texas Rangers Say They’ll Stop Trying to Hypnotize Crime Victims and Witnesses

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), which oversees the Texas Highway Patrol and the state’s (in)famous Texas Ranger Division, said this week it has finally halted the discredited hypnosis techniques it used to provide evidence in criminal investigations since at least the start of the 1980s. It’s not exactly a surprise that police would…

Tech News Tom McKay Mar 12

Why Is Courtroom Science So Unscientific?

May 15, 1989, 83-year-old Modine Wise was found naked and beaten in her home. The perpetrator left evidence scattered around her: a bloody handprint, a jacket, a pack of cigarettes, and two hairs. In February of 1991, the court sentenced 23-year-old Timothy Bridges to life in prison for the crime. The conviction was largely based…

Crime Jackie Rocheleau Feb 26

Smartphone Videos Can Now Be Analyzed and Used to Pinpoint the Location of a Shooter

Complex arrays of microphones are often used by law enforcement and the military to help quickly pinpoint where the sound of gunfire originates. But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that videos captured by smartphones can be just as useful for determining the location of a shooter. https://gizmodo.com/gunshot-survivors-are-traumatized-for-years-study-find-1839948591 The Video Event Reconstruction and Analysis…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Nov 21

We’re Learning More About the Contents of that Mysterious Egyptian Sarcophagus

Back in July, Egyptian archaeologists dared to open a strange granite sarcophagus, finding three skeletons soaking in an unsightly reddish-brown liquid. Scientists have now completed a preliminary analysis of the coffin’s contents, offering new insights into the tomb’s 2,000-year-old occupants. The granite sarcophagus was discovered in the Sidi Gaber district of Alexandria, Egypt, on July…

Human History George Dvorsky Aug 21

Fingerprint Analysis Could Finally Get Scientific, Thanks to a New Tool

There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about the court-martial at the Fort Huachuca military base in Arizona at the end of February. But when the analyst from the Department of Defense forensic laboratory presented a report on fingerprint evidence, it included an element that had never been used with fingerprint evidence in a courtroom in the…

Tech News Nicole Wetsman May 15

Most Forensic Science Is Bogus. Will New Federal Rules Help?

Forensic science is only science-magic on shows like CSI, where blood drops quickly reveal the patterns of a killer and a fingerprint places someone at a crime scene, even if it’s only half of one, and smudged off the side of a door. The science behind forensics is actually pretty shaky— and in 2009, a…

Tech News Nicole Wetsman Mar 16

Forensic Scientist Claims to Have Solved the Amelia Earhart Mystery

Pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937, and we’ve been wondering about her fate ever since. A re-examination of a forensic analysis performed in 1941 shows that bones found on a remote south Pacific island belonged to Earhart—a conclusion reached with a splashy 99 percent number attached to it. Skeptics, on…

Tech News George Dvorsky Mar 8

Jack the Ripper Letters Were Fake News, Linguistic Analysis Suggests

Following the brutal Whitechapel murders of 1888, London police and media outlets were deluged with letters claiming to have been written by Jack the Ripper. While discerning the authorship of these messages, a researcher from the University of Manchester has concluded that two of the earliest letters were written by the same person—a discovery which…

Tech News George Dvorsky Jan 30

A Deer Was Caught Gnawing on Human Remains and the End Is Nigh

Deer are generally considered one of the more benign creatures of the forest, going about their herbivorous ways in peace. But as new research shows, there’s a dark side to these ungulates. Using camera traps, forensic scientists have captured unprecedented photos of deer munching on the skeletal remains of a human carcass. “Herein, we report…

Tech News George Dvorsky May 5

The First Time We Used Cosmetics To Catch a Murderer

In 1912 forensics was still in its infancy when a pretty girl was found dead in her parent’s parlour. Her boyfriend was the immediate suspect, but he had an alibi that couldn’t be broken. Here’s how make-up, and the people who analyze it, broke it. Marie Latelle’s murder, in her own parents’ house, shocked the…

Tech News Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 25

How You Could Fool a Forensic Test with Flour and Yeast

There’s a basic test used to identify bodily secretions at crime scenes. It’s not the only test, but it is useful in primary investigations—unless you spill a lot of commercial flour around. Your mouth is perpetually full of amylase, which isn’t a bad thing. Amylase is an enzyme that attacks starch, breaking it down into…

Tech News Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 30

Scare Yourself With Science: Here’s How to Sniff Out Bodies in Shallow Graves

Why bother with fiction when you can be horrified by everyday life? We’ve found a paper about how to locate bodies in “clandestine graves” by analyzing the gas emissions they give off. Odor Analysis of Decomposing Buried Human Remains is your must-read going into Halloween weekend. When we get murdered and buried in shallow graves,…

Tech News Esther Inglis-Arkell Oct 30

This New Steam Technology Beats Luminol at Detecting Blood at Crime Scenes

Set design’s loss may be criminal justice’s gain. A new technology may eventually replace luminol in detecting traces of blood. In films or television police procedurals, the detectives go in, spray up a crime scene with luminol, and sometimes bring over a black light. Immediately their faces are lit up by the bright, blue, flattering…

Tech News Esther Inglis-Arkell Oct 23

In 1948, the First Mass Fingerprinting Operation Snagged a Horrific Child Killer

It was an unbelievably monstrous crime: a three-year-old who was in the hospital recovering from pneumonia was snatched from her bed in the middle of the night, sexually assaulted, and murdered. It appeared the girl had been held by her legs and swung skull-first into a wall until she died. Who could have done such…

Tech News Cheryl Eddy Oct 20

A Hundred Years After This Man’s Death Scientists Confirmed He Was Murdered

This historical mystery is not a “whodunnit.” It’s more of an “ifdunnit.” In 1908 the emperor of China died a very suspicious death. It took until 2008 for people to know that the person who almost definitely did murder him actually did murder him. For a hundred years, people didn’t know if this man was…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Sep 22

The Problem With Those DNA-Based Mugshots

A little less than a year ago, researchers announced a new technique that used DNA analysis to recreate the image of a person’s face. It was a stunning idea—but a new a New York Times report reveals that there’s more than one big problem with the scifi promise of DNA-based mugshots. The technique, called forensic…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Feb 24

Rapists Could Be Identified With The Bacteria On Their Pubic Hair

The results of a new study suggest forensic scientists could one day use the microbial signature of people’s privates to identify sexual offenders. Think of it as a musty, microscopic, x-rated fingerprint. Photo Credit: dullhunk via flickr |CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Historically, law enforcement has relied on hair samples to identify potential rapists, but pubic hairs…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 17

forensic science

Pentagon Begins Search for Remains of WWII POWs Lost on Japanese ‘Hell Ship’

Meet the Sexome: The Bacteria in Our Junk That We Swap During Sex

Virginia Cops Used Fake DNA Docs to Coerce Confessions. Somehow, That’s Legal

Texas Rangers Say They’ll Stop Trying to Hypnotize Crime Victims and Witnesses

Why Is Courtroom Science So Unscientific?

Smartphone Videos Can Now Be Analyzed and Used to Pinpoint the Location of a Shooter

We’re Learning More About the Contents of that Mysterious Egyptian Sarcophagus

Fingerprint Analysis Could Finally Get Scientific, Thanks to a New Tool

Most Forensic Science Is Bogus. Will New Federal Rules Help?

Forensic Scientist Claims to Have Solved the Amelia Earhart Mystery

Jack the Ripper Letters Were Fake News, Linguistic Analysis Suggests

A Deer Was Caught Gnawing on Human Remains and the End Is Nigh

The First Time We Used Cosmetics To Catch a Murderer

How You Could Fool a Forensic Test with Flour and Yeast

Scare Yourself With Science: Here’s How to Sniff Out Bodies in Shallow Graves

This New Steam Technology Beats Luminol at Detecting Blood at Crime Scenes

In 1948, the First Mass Fingerprinting Operation Snagged a Horrific Child Killer

A Hundred Years After This Man’s Death Scientists Confirmed He Was Murdered

The Problem With Those DNA-Based Mugshots

Rapists Could Be Identified With The Bacteria On Their Pubic Hair

Trump’s Botched Iran ‘Ceasefire’ Puts Polymarket Bettors in a Bind

A New ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ Video Has Me Seriously Worried

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