Happy Holiday!

As an unresponsible blogger, I haven't posted for a long time. 
However, I will not miss to greet every visitor at this special season.


The wish I gave most to others when I was a kid was:
Hope all of you dream will come true. 


Life taught me not every dream will be realized. 
Then, hold your dream and work for it at least once!


And if it is a must to relate to forensics, let's find out who bit the pumpkin pie before it is served

Case Study: State v. Jascalevich

Dr. Mario Jascalevich was accused of murdering a number of his patients by administering lethal dose of curare.  Thus the detection of curare from embalmed and interred human bodies  turned out to be determining in the trial.  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Jascalevich)
In 1976, the New York State medical examinor claimed that curare was detected in 5 bodies. Dr. Jascalvech was indicated of murders.
A little more than a year later, both defense and state experts tried to settle the question of detection of curare in human body with the wide application of new methods, including radioimmunoassay, high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry.
Because it was the first time that these analytical methods used in human issue, the judge ruled a hearing that the analytical evidence was admmissible.
The result was that curare was "possible" detected in the human tissue.  All these techniques gave indication but not absolute conclusion of the trace of curare, even though if scientist got similar result in research , they would put in the paper without doubt.
. But in this case, the court would not verdict of guilty by a possible positive lab report.
Finally, Dr. Mario Jascalevich was free.

It was a little pity that we don't know the truth. It was still a mystery.
While I was reading the case, I was wondering that curare, as a poison was very little known about its metobolism and degradation in human tissue. Even if no trace of curare was found, but it may change to another compound in the body. That would be a toxiological issue.
The nature of the techniques would not give a yes or no answer. Judges may have their personal bias towards them, which would affect the verdict. What can we do about it?

I LLLove Rainy Days

Bringing an umbrella all the time is not a waste.
Sun cream is no longer necessary.
The street is cleared, and gains the rare quietness.
Most important, rain washes the world.

So let it pour,
To wet the earthworms and salamanders in the spring;
To disperse the sear and desiccated air in the summer;
To fill the fruits with richer juice in the autumn.
To  indicate a warmer day in the  winter.

Locard's Exchange Principle

This principle has repeatedly mentioned in CSI,when the investigators go nowhere but determined to find the criminal.
The exchange principle is postulated by 20th century Edmond Locard. He was a legend. His techniques were instrumental to the French secret service during World War I.
Here is the excerpt from his publication.

	Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.
To simplify, when 2 objects touch, there must be a material exchange between them. The typical case is Locard found a metal piece on one victim's apparent,  and the metal was identical to the material of a coin at the crime scene. How bad made was the coin at that time!  With the surge of criminals' talent,  their exquisite design leaves the least trace at the scene, and destroy any DNA evidence with bleach.  Here comes a diploma: if molecule level of evidence is found, is it sufficient to be a legal proof to point out the criminal? because the exchange may happen before the crime or be caused by contamination in the lab.

Finale of BME510

I took BME 510: Biological System Modeling this semester. It taught the basic aspects of modeling of nonlinear dynamic modeling, such as parameter estimation and model validation. The very known cases would be population growth model and predator and prey model.
Tonight was the presentation of everyone's final project. With no boundary, we could do any modeling, usually related to our own project. It could be the most divergent presentations ever. By the way, I am the only biology major. Others are mostly biomedical engineering
My topic is "A dynamic model of DAMGO mediating NF-kB activation". I was hoping to talk more of the model, but it turned out my classmates asked more questions about the biological background of the cell signaling.
My friend Chloe's project is calf muscle pump, which is called the second heart. It helps to pump the heart from lower body back to heart. In order to collect data, she has to sit still for hours with the monitor wrapped on her leg, and watch dramas on the laptop. What a wonderful scientific experiment!
And the most interesting one is from Shawatana. Her model is to reveal the relation between USA GDP and birthrate. The more amazing of her is that she is working on an equipment to help losing weight. (She is definitely slim BTW. )I told her, let me use that equipment when it is completed.
Had a lot of fun tonight. Thank you, Dr. Hiroki Sayama. You replied my 4AM email after 3 hr(7 AM) and corrected my codes in such short time! Your efficiency is admirable!

Antibody Tests On Fingerprints To Detect Drugs And Diseases

ScienceDaily (May 17, 2007) — To this day, fingerprints are just the thing when a perpetrator needs to be arrested or a person needs to be identified. British scientists working with David A. Russell also want to make it possible to use fingerprints to reveal drug and doping transgressions and to diagnose diseases. As the team from the University of East Anglia in Norwich and King’s College in London report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, they have now been able to use specific antibodies to differentiate between the fingerprints of smokers and nonsmokers.

A fingerprint is of no use to an investigator unless it can be matched to one in a database or can be directly compared with that of a suspect. Russell and his team expect that we will soon be able to gain information about the lifestyle of the person who made the fingerprints, which could shrink the pool of suspects. In this way, it should be possible to use fingerprints to detect drugs, medications, or food that have been consumed, and also to diagnose some diseases.

Researchers want to coax all of these secrets out of the tiny traces of perspiration that a fingerprint leaves on a surface. The research team demonstrated the ease with which this should be possible by differentiating between fingerprints made by smokers and nonsmokers. To avoid false results from chance contact with tobacco products, they designed their system to detect cotinine, a metabolite formed by the body after consumption of nicotine.

The researchers wet the fingerprints with a solution containing gold nanoparticles to which cotinine-specific antibodies were attached. These bind to the cotinine. Subsequently, a second antibody, which was tagged with a fluorescent dye and binds specifically to cotinine antibodies, was applied to the fingerprint. Because there are many cotinine antibodies attached to each nanosphere, there is a significant amplification effect.

Indeed, the ridge patterns of smokers’ fingerprints fluoresce, while those of nonsmokers do not. The fingerprints are very highly resolved and can be lifted for comparison with known prints, just as in conventional procedures. When magnified, even the tiny sweat pores along the ridges of the fingertip become visible, which can also be used to make an unambiguous assignment.

In addition to forensic applications, this method would be ideal for detecting doping. Sample manipulations by the test subjects would hardly be possible since each sample is uniquely assignable to a specific athlete by virtue of the ridge pattern. Medical diagnostics could also benefit in the form of simple and quick mass screening with no danger of sample mix-ups. 

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. "Antibody Tests On Fingerprints To Detect Drugs And Diseases."ScienceDaily, 17 May 2007. Web. 9 May 2011 

My first forensics book

I was looking forward for a introductory textbook in forensics. And I picked out Richard Safersein. 

First, this has been used as undergrad textbook for years. 

Secondly, I paid for about 7 dollars. Cheap, aha? Because it is published in 2006.  Well, it is definitely efficient for me as a beginner. 

And, what surprised me is that this 9th edition received much better reviews than its later10th edition. 

I just browse it a little bit when I got it in 2 days after ordering. 

The images are really nice. And it provides a lot of online resources. So do not worry about getting legged behind the rapid development in this field. 

I will share my reflection when I start to read it.

Now I have to concentrate on my biological systematic modeling project due next week. 

By the way, Wolfram Mathematica is cool but pricey. 

Thanks for reading my first post!

http://www.amazon.com/Criminalistics-Introduction-Forensic-Science-College/dp/0132216558/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304912061&sr=1-3