Corona Ranch – ISHI 29 Networking Event
When the Phoenix sun sets on Wednesday night, grab your lassos and spurs and join your fellow ISHI attendees for a night of good food, cocktails, dancing, and mingling at Corona Ranch. Corona Ranch was founded in by Bill and Maria Smith in 1991. The Smiths began working in the food and beverage industry at […]
Wanted: The Tomb of the Father of Modern Astronomy
Written by: Sara Klink, Promega What do Swedish war booty, the Frombork Cathedral in Poland, and Napoleon all have in common? Answer: Nicolaus Copernicus. While much is known about the cleric and astronomer, the location of his burial site and the identity of his possible remains were cloaked in mystery. Over the […]
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 […]
Toward Validation and Implementation of the MiSeq FGx Forensic Genomics System
Submitted by Illumina Advances in massively parallel sequencing (MPS) and bioinformatics can now deliver more insight from forensic DNA samples than traditional methods have offered. Targeted MPS genotyping provides the highest resolution (at the nucleotide level) than ever before possible. MPS, also known as next generation sequencing (NGS), routinely provides economical, large volume sequencing to […]
The Living Disappeared
Submitted by: Alexa Barrett Last summer, an unprecedented number of unaccompanied children were crossing the U.S./Mexican border. The number of children crossing had grown to 54,000 in 2014, a drastic jump from the 25,000 that had crossed the year before. As detention centers overflowed, researchers, politicians, and humanitarians, began searching for ways […]
The Importance of Leadership Training in the Forensic Field
Laboratory management is a responsibility for which many forensic professionals are not fully prepared. Management and leadership education that is targeted specifically to forensic professionals is crucial to better equip forensic managers to succeed in the complex environment of a crime laboratory. Written by: Martina Bison‐Huckaby, Director of the Center for Executive Education at […]
ISHI 29 Brings Us Back to Phoenix, Arizona!
If you’re like us, you’re ready for the cold of winter to end, which has us thinking ahead to the 29th International Symposium on Human Identification, which will be held in Phoenix, Arizona! If you’ve never been to Phoenix, think of red rocks, blue sky, desert landscape, and golden sunshine. Written by: Tara Luther, […]
Returning the Stolen
Argentina is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think of dictatorships, yet the “Dirty War” of the late 1970s killed 10,000–30,000 citizens in an act of political repression by the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance. Among this figure includes some 13,000 people who disappeared overnight, sent to a network of hundreds of […]
Discovering the Truth About the Dozier School for Boys
The Dozier School for Boys had cemeteries instead of playgrounds. Written by: Greg Emmerich, Promega Corporation The stories of abuse that took place at the reformative school in Marianna, Florida are nothing short of a plot for the TV series American Horror Story. The beatings and other punishments administered to students throughout the school’s […]
