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!

In a Lost Baby Tooth, Scientists Find Ancient Denisovan DNA (The New York Times – 7/7/2017)

• But she wasn’t just any child. Scientists say she belonged to a species of extinct cousins of Neanderthals and modern humans known today as the Denisovans. And in a paper published Friday in the journal Science Advances, a team of paleoanthropologists reported that she is only the fourth individual of this species ever discovered.

PNP SOCO Collects DNA Samples from People with Missing Kin in Marawi (Inquirer – 7/7/2017)

• Philippine National Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa said the police’s Scene of Crime Office (SOCO) has started collecting samples from individuals who have reported about missing relatives.

Rarely Used Test Could Help ID Transgender Woman in 30-Year-Old Lake County Cold Case (Orlando Sentinel – 7/9/2017)

• Advances in technology revealed the victim in the 1988 case was not a woman who officials originally thought had given birth to multiple children, but instead a transgender woman who was born biologically male.

Forensic Scientists Recover Human DNA from Mosquitoes (Forensic Magazine – 7/10/2017)

• A Nagoya University research team has shown that human blood extracted from mosquitoes remains viable for DNA analysis up to two days after feeding.

Promega Achieves First Third-Party Certification of DNA Integrity (Forensic Magazine – 7/12/2017)

• Promega announced Tuesday it was the first forensic manufacturer to achieve the ISO standard. (The ISO standard was the product of an international collaboration which included two Promega scientists and members of the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory representing the United States. Ultimately, the ISO 18385 standard was based on Australian guidelines.)

Amazing DNA Tool Gives Cops a New Way to Crack Cold Cases (NBC News – 7/12/2017)

• DNA phenotyping can produce a sketch of the suspect. But is it ready for primetime?

Heritage’s Muhlhausen to Head NIJ (The Crime Report – 7/13/2017)

• David Muhlhausen of the Heritage Foundation has been named director of the National Institute of Justice, the U.S. Justice Department’s research arm, the White House announced. He succeeds Nancy Rodriguez of Arizona State University, who had been NIJ director since early 2015.

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