longreads: A profile of Rhonda Roby, a forensic scientist who has identified the bodies of victims of 9/11, victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Vietnam and Korean War MIAs, bodies of the Romanov family, victims buried in Chilean mass graves, and more: Standing there in the middle of the smoking apocalypse of the Twin Towers, she pushed aside emotion and forced the scientist part of her brain to click. ‘I kept thinking, “These people are walking on my crime scene.”’ She checks herself. “’Well, not my crime scene, but the crime scene. Of course, I wanted to identify as many remains as possible.’ While firemen and policemen all around her desperately searched for signs of life, Roby was doing math. At the time, she was the forensic manager for Applied Biosystems, a private biotech company. She stepped into the scene at 9/11 as one of the world’s leading experts in mitochondrial DNA, with hard-core experience identifying victims of mass disasters from tiny fragments of bone. There were thousands of dead. It would be necessary to sequence about 1,000 bases of DNA information on each sample of human remains, the painstaking process required to order the building blocks of a person’s unique DNA. In the end, Roby led a team that processed 21,000 DNA samples dug from the rubble of the World Trade Center. She will go down in history as one of the scientists who rushed to Ground Zero, including superstar biologist Craig Venter, famous for his work deciphering the human genetic code. Venter, instrumental in tapping her expertise for 9/11, became a friend through the experience. “Naming the Dead at Ground Zero.” — Julia Heaberlin, D Magazine A touching tale of science carried out with the mind and the heart.
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longreads:

A profile of Rhonda Roby, a forensic scientist who has identified the bodies of victims of 9/11, victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Vietnam and Korean War MIAs, bodies of the Romanov family, victims buried in Chilean mass graves, and more:

Standing there in the middle of the smoking apocalypse of the Twin Towers, she pushed aside emotion and forced the scientist part of her brain to click. ‘I kept thinking, “These people are walking on my crime scene.”’ She checks herself. “’Well, not my crime scene, but the crime scene. Of course, I wanted to identify as many remains as possible.’

While firemen and policemen all around her desperately searched for signs of life, Roby was doing math. At the time, she was the forensic manager for Applied Biosystems, a private biotech company. She stepped into the scene at 9/11 as one of the world’s leading experts in mitochondrial DNA, with hard-core experience identifying victims of mass disasters from tiny fragments of bone. There were thousands of dead. It would be necessary to sequence about 1,000 bases of DNA information on each sample of human remains, the painstaking process required to order the building blocks of a person’s unique DNA.

In the end, Roby led a team that processed 21,000 DNA samples dug from the rubble of the World Trade Center. She will go down in history as one of the scientists who rushed to Ground Zero, including superstar biologist Craig Venter, famous for his work deciphering the human genetic code. Venter, instrumental in tapping her expertise for 9/11, became a friend through the experience.

“Naming the Dead at Ground Zero.” — Julia Heaberlin, D Magazine

A touching tale of science carried out with the mind and the heart.

(via longreads)

CSI: Iceman Using a sensitive technique known as atomic force microscopy, a team studying the mummified remains of Ötzi the Iceman found the oldest intact blood cells ever confirmed. What’s more, they found a protein called fibrin, which means that the 5,300-year-old Ötzi, who died after some sort of violent altercation, didn’t expire immediately after being wounded. Whodunit? While we may never get to the bottom of Ötzi’s case, these observations may help modern forensic investigators interpret damaged and ancient blood samples from today’s crime scenes. (For what it’s worth, my money is on Ötzi being involved in a crystal mammoth deal that went south. It’s hard out there for an Iceman. Now would be a good time to cue “Regulate” by Warren G.) (via ScienceNOW)
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CSI: Iceman

Using a sensitive technique known as atomic force microscopy, a team studying the mummified remains of Ötzi the Iceman found the oldest intact blood cells ever confirmed. What’s more, they found a protein called fibrin, which means that the 5,300-year-old Ötzi, who died after some sort of violent altercation, didn’t expire immediately after being wounded. Whodunit?

While we may never get to the bottom of Ötzi’s case, these observations may help modern forensic investigators interpret damaged and ancient blood samples from today’s crime scenes.

(For what it’s worth, my money is on Ötzi being involved in a crystal mammoth deal that went south. It’s hard out there for an Iceman. Now would be a good time to cue “Regulate” by Warren G.)

(via ScienceNOW)

Source: news.sciencemag.org

ludicrous26 asked you:  Hi! Do you know of any crime solved by a Forensic scientist that so happened for real life? :)) One of my favorite case studies in forensic science (and one I have used when teaching biology) involves a blood-drinking murder case from the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. A old woman was found with her heart removed and signs of Druid ritual around her body. Grosser still, there were signs that someone drank her blood during the murder. Long story short, DNA samples were taken from the scene and analyzed to identify the killer’s DNA fingerprint (to find out how that works, check my earlier post on it here). This narrowed the suspect pool down sufficiently to identify the killer, one 17 year-old Mathew Hardman. He was later convicted and sentenced to jail for the horrible crime. If you’d like to play with this case and see more about how they solved it, take a look at this case study activity. You’ll learn about PCR and DNA fingerprinting, and pretty much be CSI-eligible in no time. Also, now would be a good time to get the Welsh jokes out of the way, like “How many sheep were on the jury?”
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ludicrous26 asked you: 
Hi! Do you know of any crime solved by a Forensic scientist that so happened for real life? :))

One of my favorite case studies in forensic science (and one I have used when teaching biology) involves a blood-drinking murder case from the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.

A old woman was found with her heart removed and signs of Druid ritual around her body. Grosser still, there were signs that someone drank her blood during the murder.

Long story short, DNA samples were taken from the scene and analyzed to identify the killer’s DNA fingerprint (to find out how that works, check my earlier post on it here). This narrowed the suspect pool down sufficiently to identify the killer, one 17 year-old Mathew Hardman. He was later convicted and sentenced to jail for the horrible crime.

If you’d like to play with this case and see more about how they solved it, take a look at this case study activity. You’ll learn about PCR and DNA fingerprinting, and pretty much be CSI-eligible in no time.

Also, now would be a good time to get the Welsh jokes out of the way, like “How many sheep were on the jury?”

Courtroom Science Drama: The Saga of Amanda Knox’s DNA If you watch crime dramas, you’ll be forgiven for the impression that DNA evidence makes an airtight case. And if you do have that impression, you might be confused about the internationally famous case of American Amanda Knox, convicted of murdering her British roommate in Perugia, Italy in 2007. After all, the prosecution’s case was based on DNA evidence; Knox’s genetic fingerprints were found by Italian police on the handle of a kitchen knife, which also had the victim’s DNA on the blade. But not all DNA evidence is created equal — and Knox walked free last week from an Italian jail after scientists savaged the forensic evidence against her as being wholly unreliable. How did DNA analysis go so wrong? (via Wired Science and Ars Technica)
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Courtroom Science Drama: The Saga of Amanda Knox’s DNA

If you watch crime dramas, you’ll be forgiven for the impression that DNA evidence makes an airtight case. And if you do have that impression, you might be confused about the internationally famous case of American Amanda Knox, convicted of murdering her British roommate in Perugia, Italy in 2007. After all, the prosecution’s case was based on DNA evidence; Knox’s genetic fingerprints were found by Italian police on the handle of a kitchen knife, which also had the victim’s DNA on the blade.

But not all DNA evidence is created equal — and Knox walked free last week from an Italian jail after scientists savaged the forensic evidence against her as being wholly unreliable. How did DNA analysis go so wrong?

(via Wired Science and Ars Technica)

Source: Wired