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A new science for a new climate
At first glance it's hard to imagine how the proliferation of
human activity upon the environment has been a major factor in
climate change given that climate change alone is nothing new.
Over two million years the earth's history has seen...
Making Mother’s Day Special
How many times have you heard a friend say about someone who’s no longer here, “I never got to tell her (or him) how much I really cared.” We’ve all felt this way at some stage about someone in our lives. Yet it’s hard to sit down and tell a person...
More Ark of the Covenant
"But there are other difficulties with the Ark of the Covenant that have to do with the possibility that it could have been part of the treasure of Rome brought by Visigoths to Rennes-le-Château. According to the Old Testament, Exodus, the Ark of...
SCORM/AICC Standards Used in Web-based Learning Management Systems
Learning management systems can be very complex. Viable learning
management systems are SCORM/AICC compliant. In this article, I
will provide a basic explanation of the SCORM/AICC standard used
in the marketplace today by many learning management...
Super-phones are great tools/toys for ourselves, but let's get tech-creators to work on helping the world and people
This article has an accompanying comic strip that can be viewed
at: http://m6.net/articles/images/supermobile.gif
The world of technology is racing ahead at such an unprecedented
pace that it really is starting to become hard to believe...
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DNA Profiling: Its Uses in Court
Stronger evidence in courtrooms—it’s what every attorney, defendant, and plaintiff dreams of. Beginning in the last 1980s, this is exactly what began to surface through DNA profiling.
In addition to the one-of-a-kind pattern engraved on our fingers, each of us possesses a unique identifier that is built within our bodies. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the genetic blueprint that determines our biological characteristics. DNA is a long molecule located in almost every cell in the human body. When we are conceived, we inherit half of our DNA from our mother and half from our father. Although every human’s DNA is 99.9% identical, the remaining 0.1% is enough to uniquely identify an individual. Our DNA is made up of about 3 billion base pairs, the building blocks of DNA composed mainly of carbon and sugar. The 0.1% (3 million) base pairs that make us unique are what constitute our DNA fingerprint.
Over the past 20 years, courts have been able to rely upon the consistent accuracy of DNA profiling, also known as DNA fingerprinting, to solve crimes. DNA profiling has even been used to solve crimes that are more than 30 years old.
Here’s how DNA profiling is done:
Specimens are collected from the crime scene. Anything can be used to extract DNA: Hair, blood, bodily fluids, etc. In some cases, victims may have scratched their attackers, in which case skin cells can be extracted from underneath
the victim’s fingernails in order to identify the criminal
The DNA needs to be isolated and cut so that it can be matched against other samples. Special enzymes recognize patterns in the DNA and cut the strand
In a process called electrophoresis, the strands are then placed on a gel where they are separated an electric current passed through it.
The resulting fragments are compared against samples of all suspects and a match is determined.
DNA profiling is mostly used in sexual offences (60%), homicide (20%), assaults (7%), robbery (7%), criminal damage (1%), and other cases (5%).
DNA profiling narrows the list of suspects that authorities need to work through. The FBI commented that DNA profiling allows them to dismiss one-third of rape suspects because the DNA samples do not match. Authorities recognize the possibility of specimens being planted at crime scenes, and therefore continue to investigate the crime based on motive, weapon, testimony, and other clues in order to more accurately solve the case.
About the Author
Tom LeBaron is a marketing representative of DNA Bioscience and Sorenson Genomics. Receive your own free home paternity testing kit, or learn more about DNA profiling.
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