Think DNA evidence can't be faked? Think again.

Edit: Oops. Wrong section. Could someone move it, please? hehe... >.> Sorry...

 

This... is not good. I don't see a way for it to be used for good, and not for cover ups... yay for science, I guess.

 

This means that in every case where the defendent is nailed with DNA evidence or has been convicted with DNA evidence...

 

Well, it is new technology... >.>

 

I told you all OJ was innocent.

 

Who's OJ?

 

OJ Simpson...

 

.................

 

Yeah, that was my first impression too.

 

lol, DNA amplification is about as simplistic as you get. Another word for it would be Mitosis. Quote Raven for truth, everyone. This is rather simple science puffed up to e-peen sizes.

 

Raven does have it right, it is media grandstanding, if you click on the link in the article for the Scientific American take on the story you'll read:

Emphasis added.

So they figured out how to forge DNA results, and then they figured out how to tell the difference between the forgery and the real thing.

Want to be sure the cops aren't framing your ass? Send them your money.
Your in jail and say the cops framed your ass? Send them your money.
They sell company stock? I think I might send them some money.

If your company doesn't have a niche, make one. They just did what Al Gore is trying to do with cap and trade. Get rich. :awesome

 

Well, if it can be faked, then it can't be used as a be-all end-all in court. Kinda sucks, but at least we know before people get framed too much.

 

Whenever I hear about "conclusive DNA evidence" in court cases, it involves hair or semen. So "yay" for ruling out saliva, I guess...

 

Well it sounds to me like both methods are useless. The first one requires that you actually have a sample of the person's blood or saliva to work with, and if you have that, why not just leave that at the crime scene. The second method sounds like anyone looking at the blood through a microscope would notice the absence of the white blood cells. And really in the end, falsified DNA evidence has never been any harder than switching samples in a lab or in the evidence lockup, and that's a lot less high tech and cost prohibitive.

Wait, shouldn't this be in the Real Life Forum.

 

The poster realized his mistake and corrected it on edit.

OP: Evidence has and always will be contested. Defendants will cry framing, conspiracy and the likes. The fact is this is highly improbable, and wouldn't really sway a jury. Especially a jury who isn't well read on the matter and tend to take lawyer's words with a bit of salt.

 

Only for the first process. >.>

Exactly. They even said it themselves:

Says lead researcher Dan Frumkin: “You can just engineer a crime scene…. Any biology undergraduate could perform this” [The New York Times].

Which is exactly why it's such a mention-worthy story; it's not too hard for criminals to do.

"While it might be easier for a shadowy crime scene-fixer to plant a stray hair or cigarette butt than to cook up a misleading batch of blood or saliva, researchers say that they can imagine scenarios in which blood or saliva would be more convincing."

John M. Butler, leader of the human identity testing project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he was “impressed at how well they were able to fabricate the fake DNA profiles.”

True, that...

 

10 minutes before this becomes the central theme of a law and order episode.