This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!     Medical Examiners Use Rapid DNA to Identify Victims (Forensic Magazine – 12/8/2017) In […]

This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!     New Software Can Verify Someone’s Identity by Their DNA in Minutes (BioScience […]

This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!     Would-be Obama Assassin Identified by Cat Hairs, Authorities Say (The Guardian – 11/24/2017) […]

Countdown to 2017: Internal Validation of the New CODIS Loci

Written by: Carolyn Steffen, Erica Romsos, Michael Coble, and Peter Vallone     The original core set of 13 Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci were selected in November 1997 and are required by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for upload of DNA profiles to the U.S. national DNA […]

Aiding the Innocent: How Witness to Innocence Supports the Wrongly Convicted

ISHI 26 featured Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person sentenced to death who was exonerated through DNA evidence. Twenty of the 336 people who have been exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing in the United States served time on death row.* The true perpetrators have been identified in 166 of those 336 exonerations, and went on to […]

NIST 3D Ballistics Research Database

It’s a staple of the TV-crime drama: a ballistics expert tries to match two bullets using a microscope with a split-screen display. One bullet was recovered from the victim’s body and the other was test-fired from a suspect’s gun. If the striations on the bullets line up—cue the sound of a cell door slamming shut—the […]

Fire and Explosion Investigation Guideline Approved for OSAC Registry

 The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) for Forensic Science has approved the National Fire Protection Association Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations for inclusion on the OSAC Registry, which serves as a trusted repository of high-quality, science-based standards and guidelines for forensic practice. This is the first guideline to be included on the OSAC Registry, where […]

ISO 18385: The Creation of a ‘Forensic Grade’ Standard

Forensic DNA laboratories rely on reagent and plastics manufacturers to supply high-quality products with minimal interference from contaminating DNA.  With the increasing sensitivity of short tandem repeat (STR) amplification systems, levels of DNA that were previously undetected may now generate partial profiles.  To address the concern of laboratories worldwide regarding the potential of low-level DNA […]