Word: dna
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What's surprising even scientists is the other--even less likely--places they can get it. DNA is generally found only in cells that have a nucleus, which rules out cells in fingernails, teeth and the shafts of hair. What those cells do have, however, is something called mitochondrial DNA, a more primitive form of genetic coding inherited from the mother only. A mitochondrial-DNA sequencing technique developed by anthropologists to help trace human ancestors has been adopted by pioneering crime fighters. Nobody pretends that the new technology is anywhere near as precise as traditional DNA profiling. Nonetheless, later this...
...glamour and promise, DNA testing is not the technology that truly excites forensic scientists--or the people who make TV dramas. What thrills them most is the hardware--the scopes and scanners and mass spectrometers that allow investigators to peer with remarkable precision into any given piece of evidence...
Other technologies are less experimental. One of the fondest dreams of law-enforcement officials is to build a national computer system that holds the fingerprints and DNA of every known felon and the ballistic signature of every gun ever used in a crime. Early versions of each of these databases--the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN) and the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS)--already exist, but they are not yet all fully operational...
...DNA database is also nowhere near complete, in part because of the legal complexities of obtaining DNA samples. In California a program that required felons to submit DNA samples was challenged by a group of female inmates on death row who claimed it would violate their privacy. They and several hundred other inmates refused to give up their DNA. The state supreme court slapped down the suit by refusing to review the matter, and last month Governor Gray Davis signed legislation allowing jail officials to take samples by force if necessary. "I logically cannot see the difference between a person...
...irony is that DNA evidence can also clear a condemned prisoner. Earlier this month Montana inmate Jimmy Ray Bromgard, who had already spent 15 years in jail, became the 111th person in the U.S. exonerated by postconviction DNA testing aided by the Innocence Project after it was revealed that semen found on the victim's clothing was not, in fact...