from the not-a-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
This won't be good news for criminals who forget their gloves.
Researchers at Flinders University in South Australia have developed a new test that can measure the amount of DNA we "shed", the university revealed Friday. This could mean that a single tap of a finger on a door handle can be used to link potential suspects to a crime, and also potentially reveal who an item last came into contact with.
In a test involving 11 donors, the researchers took 264 fingerprints, getting participants to wash their hands, then give prints of their thumbs at intervals of 180 minutes.
"We know that some people pass on more of their DNA because when they touch something more of their cells are left behind," lead researcher Adrian Linacre said. "They are called shedders but it's very difficult at the moment to see who is a shedder."
The researchers developed a dye which can identify deposits of DNA at a crime scene, accurately pointing investigators to where DNA samples lie, instead of leaving them to guess.
"The dye binds within a number of seconds... certainly within 10 seconds we can see all the DNA that's there, and we can count it," Linacre told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Friday. This lets the researchers determine whether someone is a "shedder".
"By counting the amount of cellular material, which appears as green dots, we know if someone's a heavy shedder or a poor shedder," Linacre told the ABC.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @06:29AM (4 children)
The jokes on you. In the future, all home invasions will be done with robots.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 10 2018, @09:19AM (3 children)
More likely, criminals will burn routinely down the entire building after committing any crime.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @10:04AM (1 child)
> criminals will burn routinely down the entire building
This is good, the criminals will be burning routinely as they run the length of the building.
What??!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @04:19PM
Turned to the darkside Yoda has.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:00PM
Nah, once people figure this out they will start framing each other by producing the relevant dna sequences in bacteria and leaving them at scenes of the crime. It isnt that hard to get a sample of someones DNA to do this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @06:56AM
You must acquit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:11PM
Prescient movie. Now where are those manned missions to Titan?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by backsplatter on Wednesday October 10 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)
Depending on the amount of "shedding" that someone can do, it makes the possibility of your DNA showing up someplace unexpected scary.
Just because a DNA sample is found at the scene of a crime doesn't give you 100% of the story.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday October 10 2018, @08:43PM
Optimistically, that could also protect the innocent. "Your honor, my client is a shedder, therefore it is perfectly normal that his DNA is all over the crime scene."
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