Tracing ivory from a sixteenth century shipwreck
Geneticists have added a lot of new knowledge about elephant relationships and phylogeography over the last few years. One of the big areas of advance has be...
All posts tagged with forensics
Link: So easy to match DNA to names
Forensic genealogy is now mainstream. From Bloomberg Businessweek, a report by Kristen Brown: “A Researcher Needed Three Hours to Identify Me From My DNA”.
DNA genealogy and forensic cold cases
This year there have been some amazing new leads in “cold cases” by using a new kind of DNA approach, using public genealogy websites to look for people who ...
Testing the sex of ancient individuals from their enamel proteins
A recent paper by Nicolas Stewart and colleagues presents a way to determine the sex of ancient individuals by examining the composition of their tooth ename...
Tracing the users of chimpanzee tools by their DNA fingerprints
A new paper by Fiona Stewart and coworkers does a bit of forensic DNA analysis on tools made and used by chimpanzees: “DNA recovery from wild chimpanzee tool...
Why I’m skeptical about Lucy in the Skyfall
I have no trouble believing that Lucy might have fallen to her death. Why not? The Lucy skeleton has several features compatible with a lifetime of climbing,...
A visit to the world’s largest body farm
Vox writer Joseph Stromberg visited the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, and has written an in-depth description of his visit: “The sc...
The DNA portrait artist
Twitter gets results! A group of geneticists (honestly, including me) were kvetching on Twitter about this NPR story: “Litterbugs Beware: Turning Found DNA I...
Alfred, possibly not under a car park
So after they found the bones of Richard III under a parking lot, now everybody is apparently going crazy to dig up bones under parking lots, churchyards, un...
The Mayflower criminal registry
Of some interest with respect to DNA databases and privacy concerns: “DNA links 1991 killing to Colonial-era family”.
Body donation is a weighty matter
Barbara King gives a shout-out to the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee (“Cremation, burial, or Body Farm?”).
Oetzi's curse
I did not know there was an iceman mummy curse:
Neandertal band of brothers
Carles Lalueza-Fox and colleagues Lalueza-Fox:patrilocal:2010 have a new analysis of the mitochondrial DNA from El Sidrón, Spain. The site has a minimum numb...
Amelia news
More news about Amelia Earhart:
Charlemagne the tall
I found an interesting, short paper doing a bit of forensic investigation on Charlemagne Ruhli:Charlemagne:2010:
DNA arrest database
In yesterday’s DNA news, the U.S. House of Representatives wants to pay for an expansion of federal DNA databases to include all arrestees:
The Neandertal fraction
I’ve gotten the same question a few times, and have seen it elsewhere, so I thought it would be worth a short post to explain it. And for those readers who’v...
How many genotypes does it take to nab you?
I was reading this story about “genetic surveillance” by law enforcement. I’ll blog about it later.
Bill Bass profile
A local Knoxville paper did a story last month on anthropologist Bill Bass. Bass is probably best-known for his efforts to establish the “Facility,” otherwis...
Forensic facial reconstruction profile
The BBC has a profile of forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson, which has a nice little review of some new computerized facial reconstruction techniques: