I was watching Top Gear the other day and James May was driving the woman who was responsible for designing all of the British roadsigns back in the 1950s. Practically all of the signs are still used today and, as a testament to how well they were designed, they haven’t dated. The big thing about (read more)
Momentarily alarmed…
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Is it scary giving evidence in court? Yes, when you notice a knife lying on a chair in the main foyer of the court. I was in a south Auckland court today and to start with, the day didn’t seem anything unusual. Whilst waiting around for the case to start, I glanced to my left (read more)
Forensic Hair Analysis – how to
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Forensic hair analysis crops up mostly commonly in cases involving Drug Facilitated Sexual Assualt (DFSA, or date rape cases) and Family Court matters where parents or guardians want access to their children. In any case where hair analysis is required, FSRL can make that analysis happen. We consider the circumstances of the case and determine (read more)
Cunning radiocarbon and dating volcanic eruptions
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
It is excellent to see a new AMS radiocarbon dating set-up in New Zealand (NZ scientists fire up $3.4 million mass spectrometer). When I was working on climate reconstruction I was hugely reliant on the previous 14C (radiocarbon) device to help put Before Present (BP) ages on volcanic ash layers (tephra) that occurred in sections (read more)
Waste of science
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
You’re printing an URGENT document and – @#$% – “toner empty“. Annoying (politely). So you hope you’ve got a new one, otherwise it’s a dash to the supplier, hoping they have one but if it’s 4.30pm then Murphy’s Law says that they haven’t. Eventually get a new cartridge, pop it in the printer, cast the (read more)
You steal – you're marked! Smearing DNA on your valuable items
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Don’t want burglars stealing your gear? Smear it with synthetic DNA and help reduce the burglary rate by more than 50%! A recent product launch in New Zealand is something called SelectaDNA, which is a synthetic DNA material that can be put onto items you don’t want people to steal and then advertising the fact (read more)
DNA v child trafficking
Friday, April 30th, 2010
2.5 million = number of people at any one time in forced labour and sexual exploitation as a result of human trafficking (International Labor Organisation/UN.GIFT). An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. 95% of victims experience sexual or physical violence. How to help combat this enormous problem? DNA analysis. As the result of (read more)
Finding new 9/11 victims
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Forensic anthropologists and archaeologists have been sifting through 611 cubic metres (21,600 cubic feet) of material from the World Trade Centre bombings and have found twenty potential remains from humans. This is not, of course, the same as saying the remains of twenty people have been found. These remains were not discovered at the actual (read more)
The science or the people who are dodgy?
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Is there something wrong with forensic science or is there something wrong with some of the people doing the work? Much is being made of fundamental issues with certain areas of forensic science (such as validation and incompetence, assessing DNA databases), so much so that some judges in the USA have said that science should (read more)
Categories of "drunk"
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
There has been much comment in the media and on Sciblogs about the effects (or not) of a lowering in drink driving “accidents” (although the Road traffic Police in England refer to them as ‘avoidable incidents’, because they are; there’s nothing accidental about them) as the result of a reduction in the NZ blood alcohol (read more)