Questions tagged [forensics]
12 questions
22
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Did pills from China seized in South Korea contain the powdered flesh of dead babies?
According to CBS news (May 7, 2012) South Korea cracks down on human flesh capsules from China
(AP) SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled
drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies, which some
people…
Paul
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Will running through water "lose one's scent" when being tracked by dogs?
It's a fairly common movie trope that when someone is being chased by dogs they will run through water to "lose their scent" and the dogs will no longer be able to follow the trail of the one pursued.
If this is true to a degree, a sub question…
Hendy
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Matching bullets to handguns (Ballistic fingerprinting)
Ballistic fingerprinting has been used as evidence in US courts and elsewhere. In this method found bullets are compared based on markings the firing gun left on them. This should allow to prove which gun a certain bullet was fired from.
I've heard…
Mad Scientist
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15
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The CSI effect: Have television shows been shown to influence jury verdicts?
"Lawyers in the United States have been known to use the following
reason for striking down potential jurors: the prospective juror is
well educated in science, or has some knowledge of genetics or
probability theory." - Richard Dawkins…
Monkey Tuesday
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15
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How long did the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger survive?
I came across this Snopes page recently, which presents the claim that the astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger survived until the crew compartment hit the water, and then debunks it.
If the cabin depressurized immediately, the crew…
HDE 226868
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Can a dead mouse sealed in a can of soda dissolve into a jelly-like substance in one year?
A soft-drink company argued in a "dead mouse in a can of soda" case that an intact body of a dead mouse is unlikely to be found inside a can of soda because the dead mouse would have been dissolved by the acid in the soda can in that…
user2547
8
votes
2 answers
Is it possible to get a reliable match from 'microscopic hair analysis'?
In her 1999 memoir, 'Lucky', Alice Sebold describes being raped and the arrest and conviction of the male perpetrator, which took place in 1981-1982.
Several months after she was raped, a man passed her on the street and made a comment which she…
thelawnet
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Is handwriting analysis considered a legitimate source of evidence in forensic science?
I'm not referring to determining personality from handwriting, I'm talking about whether a document was forged or created by a certain person by comparing handwriting on a document to a sample source of handwriting.
Catherine Holloway
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Can a fingerprint be replicated to fool a security system?
This Instructables article describes how to lift someone's fingerprint and turn it into a device to fool a fingerprint reader.
This Wikihow article does likewise.
This web page describes how a number of students carried out a similar hack.
Are these…
ghosts_in_the_code
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When they say "error rate" for identifying hand writing, do they mean false positives, false negatives, or both?
With regards to verifying a person's signature, this book states (page 429)
The error rate was 6.5 percent for the experts and 38.3 percent for
nonexperts.
What exactly does the error rate represent? If a subject where to claim 2 samples were…
Celeritas
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Is the skull fragment, said to be Hitler's, from a young woman?
Wikipedia tells the story of some alleged fragments of Hitler's skull that were tested in 2009:
In May 1946, SMERSH agents recovered from the crater where Hitler was buried two burned skull fragments with gunshot damage. These remains were…
pericles316
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Does everyone have a unique set of fingerprints?
Fingerprints are often used by law enforcement to identify individuals, even with a partial print. Are there any cases where people had the same fingerprints? Is there a limit to the number of unique fingerprints that can possibly exist?
msmucker0527
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