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+1 +1
Why Did Annie Dookhan Lie?
Forensic science can be a powerful crime-fighting tool, but misdeeds, dubious methodologies, and bogus claims threaten its reputation—and the reputation of science as a whole.
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+16 +1
Over 8,000 marijuana convictions in San Francisco dismissed with help from a computer algorithm
Technology meets law and order to help dismiss thousands of marijuana-related convictions dating back to 1975 in San Francisco. The San Francisco District Attorney's office announced on Monday that 8,132 convictions will be dismissed thanks to a computer algorithm that automatically scanned court records. "This makes San Francisco the first county in the country to complete the automated marijuana record clearance process," said a statement from the office of San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón
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+34 +1
DNA on napkin used to crack 32-year-old cold case, police say
DNA evidence from a discarded restaurant napkin was used to identify a suspect in the slaying of a 12-year-old girl in 1986, police in Tacoma, Washington, said Friday.
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+21 +2
Innocent Man Charged With Murder Because His DNA Was Found On The Fingernails Of Victim, Whom He Had Never Met
The forensic use of DNA is rightly regarded as one of the most reliable ways of establishing the identity of someone who was present at a crime scene. As technology has advanced, it is possible to use extremely small traces of genetic material to...
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+12 +1
Erica Parsons case: Parents charged with murder years after N.C. girl vanished
The parents of a North Carolina girl who was missing for years before her father led them to her skeletal remains in 2016 will be charged with murder, reports CBS affiliate WBTV. A grand jury on Monday indicted Sandy and Casey Parsons on charges of first-degree murder, felony child abuse, felony concealment of death and felony obstruction of justice in the death of their daughter Erica, the station reports.
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+27 +1
Face of 9,000-Year-Old Teenager Reconstructed
Her name is Avgi, and the last time anyone saw her face was nearly 9,000 years ago. When she lived in Greece, at the end of the Mesolithic period around 7000 B.C., the region was transitioning from a society of hunter gatherers to one that began cultivating its own food. In English, Avgi translates to Dawn—a name archaeologists chose because she lived during what's considered the dawn of civilization.
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+31 +1
Apple health data used in murder trial
Health data has provided crucial evidence at a trial in Germany, in which a refugee is accused of rape and murder. Apple's Health App accurately records steps and has been pre-installed on the iPhone 6S and newer models. Data suggesting the suspect was climbing stairs could correlate to him dragging his victim down a riverbank and climbing back up, police said.
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+25 +1
The Mexican doctor rehydrating the dead
Dr Alejandro Hernández Cárdenas has developed a new technique to help identify corpses. By Irene Caselli. [Disturbing]
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+46 +1
Who Killed the Iceman? Clues Emerge in a Very Cold Case
When the head of a small Italian museum called Detective Inspector Alexander Horn of the Munich Police, she asked him if he investigated cold cases.
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+15 +1
Secret Crime-Fighter Revealed to Be 1930s Physicist
Nine recently unearthed notebooks record the true scope of work done by the mysterious forensics pioneer called “Detective X.” By Veronique Greenwood.
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+21 +1
Detectives on the toll of investigating child deaths: it only gets harder
There has been little research into what it’s like for police detectives to investigate the death of a child. As bluntly stated in official police guidance documents “children are not meant to die”, and coping with these circumstances, especially as a detective and parent, could involve emotional and psychological demands beyond those experienced when investigating adult murders.
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+38 +1
Face of 9,500-Year-Old Man Revealed for First Time
Digital tools help researchers reconstruct the Neolithic man inside the famed Jericho Skull.
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+22 +1
The Detective of Northern Oddities
When a creature mysteriously turns up dead in Alaska—be it a sea otter, polar bear, or humpback whale—veterinary pathologist Kathy Burek gets the call. Her necropsies reveal cause of death and causes for concern as climate change frees up new pathogens and other dangers in a vast, thawing north. By Christopher Solomon.
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+13 +1
When Obama wouldn’t fight for science
The administration’s capitulation to law enforcement on forensics reform is one of its biggest and most disastrous failures. By Radley Balko.
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+31 +1
Most Ivory for Sale Comes From Recently Killed Elephants—Suggesting Poaching Is Taking Its Toll
Carbon dating finds that almost all trafficked ivory comes from animals killed less than three years before their tusks hit the market. By Rachel Nuwer.
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+22 +1
How Forensic Scientists Once Tried to “See” a Dead Person’s Last Sight
Scientists once believed that the dead's last sight could be resolved from their extracted eyeballs. By Marissa Fessenden. (May 23, 2016)
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+28 +1
Catalonia: DNA tests to identify Spain's civil war dead
Catalonia starts DNA project to identify some of the 114,000 who disappeared during Spain's civil war and dictatorship.
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+26 +1
Insurance company comes up with greatest theory in history to avoid paying out on burned down house
Stories of insurance companies refusing to pay out have existed for about as long as insurance companies themselves. Yet few can be as surprising, elaborate, or involve as many bizarre details as the case of British expat Christopher Robinson and the fire that destroyed his $1.6 million mansion in New Zealand. Mr Robinson, in his late sixties, moved to a remote part of North Island near Kerikeri with his wife and two children in 2005.
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+19 +1
There's a Section of Yellowstone Where You Can Get Away with Murder
The blood is still drying on Clay McCann's hands when he walks into a remote ranger station, slides a warm gun across the desk, and informs the ranger that he's just killed four campers. "Do you want me to call a lawyer?" the alarmed ranger asks. "I am a lawyer," McCann says. So begins C. J. Box's 2007 thriller Free Fire, the seventh in a book series about a Wyoming game warden. The novel's plot spins on the premise that in an uninhabited, 50-square-mile portion of Yellowstone National Park, you can legally get away with murder.
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+30 +1
Our Ancestors Used Tools to Hunt 250,000 Years Ago, Study Finds
Researchers from the University of Victoria and colleagues in the US and Jordan just unearthed the oldest evidence of protein residue on stone tools, suggesting that early humans living 250,000 years ago in the Middle East were already using instruments to obtain food from animals. Writing in the latest edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science, paleoanthropologist April Nowell and her colleagues explained they excavated a total of 10,000 stone tools from a site known as Shishan Mars, a desert oasis located close to Azraq, Jordan.
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