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 […]
Tag: forensic
Analysis of the mystery bones
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 […]
The research that’s on everyone’s lips: Lip prints
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 […]
A new twist in forensic knicker-testing
A study in New Zealand tested the tearing of knickers, and found that meaningful results are not easy to obtain if one examines only the fabric itself: “Tearing of Knicker Fabrics,” T.J. Dann, D.J. Carr, R.M. Laing, B.E. Niven and J. Kieser, Forensic Science International, 217 (2012) 93–100. (Thanks to investigator Erwin Kompanje for bringing this […]