This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: Biting biting remarks — …Bite-mark analysis hoo-ha, so far, mostly applies to identifying human biters. Mostly, but not entirely. Enter a new paper called “Forensic determination of shark species as predators and scavengers of sea turtles in […]
What are your pet fears? The review column “Cats Research: Do Cats Eat Human Remains?” is a but one of many featured items in the special Forensics issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. The article is free to download:
Crime may be affected by the sniffling of potential criminals which may be affected by the amounts of pollen in the air, which might explain all sorts of things, suggests this new study: “More sneezing, less crime? Health shocks and the market for offenses,” Aaron Chalfin, Shooshan Danagoulian, and Monica Deza, Journal of Health Economics, […]
“An earprint is an impression of the external ear. House breakers may leave their earprints inadvertently when they listen at doors and windows to check if there is anyone inside before breaking and entering a premises. Owing to uniqueness and individualistic characteristics of the human ear, earprints can be used as evidence to link a […]
Tanya Dann, in completing her studies for a masters degree in clothing and textile science from the University of Otago, wrote this thesis, which has more than a touch of the forensic about it: “The tearing behaviour and effect of laundering on knicker fabrics,” Tanya Jayne Dann, thesis, Master of Science, University of Otago, 2011. (Thanks […]
Some folks love a real-life forensic mystery, of which this is one: “A matter of large body passing through a small hole: The holeproof out the window,” F. Patel, Forensic Science International, Volume 56, Issue 2, October 1992, Pages 183–188. The author, at the Department of Forensic Medicine, UMDS Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals, University […]
Of the forensic studies of the effect of passing lawn mowers over skeletal remains, this is the most recent: “Lemonade from Lemons: The Taphonomic Effect of Lawn Mowers on Skeletal Remains,” D.C. Martin, Gretchen R. Dabbs [pictured here], Lindsey G. Roberts, Journal of Forensic Sciences, epub July 3, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Rolf Zwaan for […]
On television — especially American television — forensic scientists almost always figure out the identity of mysterious corpses. This study suggests that the actual results — in real life, dealing with real corpses — may not be as good, especially outside America: “Unidentified bodies and human remains: An Italian glimpse through a European problem,” Cristina […]
A package arrived here, at our offices in the US, from a man in Poland. The package contained a letter and several little collections of tiny bones. (Each little collection was wrapped in its own piece of paper, and contained, in addition to the bones, a tiny slip of paper with a few words written on […]
They are on everyone’s lips always, and sometimes on a shred of evidence in a murder trial, and occasionally in the title of a scientific report. Lip prints have become the subject of formal study. That formal study has a formal name: cheiloscopy. Basic questions still nag at cheiloscopists. A Portuguese population lip print patterns […]