DHAKA, Bangladesh — Inside a small government laboratory here, there are about 300 test tubes, each labeled with masking tape and containing an extracted tooth or a shard of bone. Day and night, dozens of these tubes rest on metal trays that vibrate with a motorized monotony. The shaking decalcifies the bone in a process that requires two weeks before material can be gleaned for a DNA profile.
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Grim Task of Identifying Factories’ Dead Overwhelms Bangladeshi Lab
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Minnesota BCA asks kin of missing loved ones for DNA samples to help ID remains
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Thursday it is asking family members of missing persons to provide DNA samples as part of an effort to identify at least 100 sets of human remains, with the goal of bringing missing loved ones back home.
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Posted in Backlogs, Cold Cases, Database, Forensic Industry News
‘In Cold Blood’ DNA testing results inconclusive
A Kansas official said DNA testing is so far inconclusive about whether two men executed in Kansas for the 1959 killings that inspired the book “In Cold Blood” are linked to unsolved murders in Florida.
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Posted in Cold Cases, Forensic Industry News
DNA test in rape case can’t be used as main evidence
ISLAMABAD – The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has declared that DNA tests are not admissible as the main evidence in rape cases.
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Posted in DNA Legislation
Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signs felony arrestee DNA collection bill into law
CARSON CITY, Nevada — After clearing the state Legislature on its second try, Brianna’s Law became Nevada law Wednesday with the stroke of a pen.
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Posted in DNA Education
DNA may help military end era of unknown soldiers
Combat boots stand empty before the altar, a rifle behind each pair.
In the Fort Drum chapel, in upstate New York, families and comrades fill the pews.
The chaplain calls the roll. Memories of missing men respond with a grave, complicated silence.
Barbara Ann Broyles listens to the name of her father, Lt. Col. Don Carlos Faith Jr., echo in the chapel.
She was 41⁄2 years old when Faith died east of the Chosin Reservoir in Korea in 1950. The scattered, retreating remnants of his troops left behind his body.
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Posted in Forensic Industry News, Missing Persons
Law enforcement pushes for power to swab for DNA on arrest
“Book ’em” could carry a whole new meaning at police stations in Canada if lawmakers are swayed to make a controversial change to the Criminal Code.
A growing number of law enforcement representatives are calling for new powers to collect DNA from criminal suspects at the time of their arrest, not just upon their conviction.
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Posted in Database, DNA Legislation
Las Vegas police losing grant to review cold cases
A federal grant that has helped Las Vegas police solve dozens of cold case homicides and sexual assaults since 2009 is drying up.
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Posted in Forensic Industry News, Funding
After decades of searching, could a handful of debris provide the answer?
ARLINGTON, Va. — Nearly half a century passed before the suspected remains of six airmen made the journey from a rice paddy in southeastern Laos to a forensics lab near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
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Posted in Missing Persons
Found after 50 years: remains are of missing Judith
A homicide investigation has been launched after human remains found on a NSW property in 2009 were identified as those of Judith Bartlett, who went missing 50 years ago.
Police had been working to identify the remains since they were found on a property at Gooloogong, in central western NSW, in May 2009.
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Posted in Cold Cases, Missing Persons
DNA bill will help conviction rate
Durban – South Africa has one of the highest crime rates internationally and an overburdened police and judicial system that results in few convictions.
The system is in dire need of a comprehensive national DNA database which will help convict offenders and exonerate people wrongly accused, improving the effectiveness and accuracy of the legal system.
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Posted in Database, DNA Legislation
Wis. budget committee approves DNA upon arrest
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Legislature’s finance committee Thursday approved a plan in Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s executive budget that would dramatically expand the state’s powers to seize DNA from crime suspects.
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Posted in Database, DNA Legislation
Budget committee to take up DNA collection from felons Thursday
Madison – Proposals from Gov. Scott Walker to collect DNA from those arrested for felonies and allow GPS tracking for restraining orders will come before the Legislature’s budget committee Thursday.
Walker’s 2013-’15 budget bill provides about $6 million to collect DNA samples at every felony arrest and some misdemeanor arrests, as well as upon the conviction for any crime. That would lead to collecting DNA from tens of thousands more accused criminals from across the state each year.
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Posted in DNA Legislation
Mirari Biosciences Granted U.S. Patent for Microwave DNA Technology
Mirari Biosciences, a pioneer in the field of microwave biochemistry, announces the award of a U.S. Patent broadly covering the use Company’s microwave technology to shorten the time required for nucleic acid analysis, including DNA testing and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification.
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Posted in Forensic Industry News, New ID Technologies
CMU Professor Takes DNA Testing To New Levels
PITTSBURGH (AP) — He’s not your typical Sherlock Holmes, but this CMU professor is in demand by police around the world.
He’s putting bad guys in jail with a DNA analysis technology he invented called True Allele.
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Posted in Forensic Industry News