Category Archives: Forensic science

DNA study confirms Christopher Columbus’s remains are entombed in Seville

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Scientists have ‘definitively’ proved identity of remains – with navigator’s precise origins to be revealed

Scientists in Spain claim to have solved the two lingering mysteries that cling to Christopher Columbus more than five centuries after the explorer died: are the much-travelled remains buried in a magnificent tomb in Seville Cathedral really his? And was the navigator who changed the course of world history really from Genoa – as history has long claimed – or was he actually Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Jewish or Portuguese?

The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is … wait until Saturday.

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Hundreds of Israeli bodies remain unidentified 10 days after Hamas attack

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Forensic anthropologists say many of the 350 human remains they are examining may never be identified

On a table, a jumble of bones and fragments are laid out carefully, some grey, others charred black. A skeleton hangs at the side of the room for reference.

Three forensic anthropologists peer over them with the intent focus of professionals trying to solve the most tragic of puzzles. Their job is to identify some of the most badly damaged remains of victims of the Hamas massacres of 7 October.

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Ötzi the iceman had receding hairline and dark skin tone, study reveals

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Genome analysis reveals new physical details of mummified corpse found in ice of Italian Alps

Dark eyes, receding black hair, few or no freckles and a darker skin tone. This is how Ötzi the iceman, the mummified corpse found trapped in the ice of the Italian Alps, would have looked while living.

Researchers who conducted a higher-coverage analysis of the genome to learn more about Ötzi’s genetic history and the mummified man’s physical appearance have found genes associated with male-pattern baldness and darker skin tone.

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Rape, DNA and injustice: a timeline of the Andrew Malkinson case

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After spending 17 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, the 57-year-old’s conviction was finally overturned last month

A 33-year-old woman is raped and left for dead on a motorway embankment in Salford as she walks home. She recalls causing a “deep scratch” to her attacker’s face. Andrew Malkinson is visited by police officers the next day who see he has no scratch. He is arrested two weeks later and then picked out of a video lineup.

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Queensland lab failed to identify DNA from nine semen samples in rape case, inquiry told

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Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing hears police demanded retesting, resulting in profile found to match offender

Fears crucial evidence was being missed by the government-run forensic lab prompted Queensland police to call for a thorough review of DNA thresholds.

A public hearing of the Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing heard on Wednesday the relationship between police and the facility deteriorated as serious questions arose over testing results.

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Mystery man dubbed ‘The Gentleman’ found in North Sea may have spent most of his life in Australia

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Breakthrough in the decades-old cold case comes after scientists conducted an isotope ratio analysis of the man’s bones

Perth scientists have breathed life into a decades-old German mystery of an unknown man’s body found floating in the North Sea, by using a new forensic technique that revealed he may have spent most of his life in Australia.

The man, dubbed “The Gentleman” by investigators in 1994 after his body was found by police off the coast of the Helgoland, a German archipelago, was weighed down by cast iron cobbler’s feet.

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Body of evidence: meet the experts working in crime scene forensics

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Phone signals, soil samples, tattoo ink, fly larvae… We all know that microscopic traces can play a crucial role in solving crimes. But who are the forensic experts who can read the clues?

Before I started out in forensics 20 years ago, I served in the military. I was a communications engineer in the army, radios were my domain. After I left, someone suggested I turn to digital forensics. I was a bit of a sceptic at first, but I just didn’t understand what could be done. In my time, I’ve worked in both the private and public sector; within the police and as an independent expert.

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Pores for thought: how sweat reveals our every secret, from what we’ve eaten to whether we’re on drugs

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Just one drop of perspiration might soon be enough to identify a criminal or diagnose a cancer. But this fast-moving science could also pose a serious threat to civil liberties


When I deposited my index fingerprint on a laboratory slide so that Simona Francese could analyse it, I felt as if I was giving her the password to my body’s secrets. Most forensic scientists examine a fingerprint’s pattern but Francese, a forensic scientist from Sheffield Hallam University, analyses the chemicals left behind in those whirls and swirls. Her aim is to develop techniques that will allow her to extract identifying information about people at a crime scene from the sweaty residues they leave behind.

Fingerprints are inked with sweat, a body fluid that holds revealing information about our health and our vices. Our sweat glands source perspiration from the watery parts of blood, and any chemicals flowing around your circulatory system can, in principle, leak out of your sweat pores.

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Inside the mind of a murderer: the power and limits of forensic psychiatry

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When I was called in to assess Seb, I needed to understand why he had committed such a horrendous crime. But first I had to get him to talk

Even before Seb had arrived at the prison, five weeks before my first visit, the staff had received a notification that he ought to be subject to close monitoring. While still in police custody, an out-of-hours forensic psychiatric assessment had been requested.

Seb had been compliant with the arresting officers, but he had given the impression that he was unconcerned by what had happened – it seemed as though he didn’t mind at all that he was being arrested. More bizarrely, there were flickers of apparent self-satisfaction. Seb had been arrested on suspicion of murdering his mother.

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‘There is no perfect crime’: inside the real French CSI

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A new police science unit in France is deploying groundbreaking forensics and believes DNA will soon allow it to put faces on suspects

Imagine a crime scene. The body of a man in a red sweatshirt and jeans lies dead on the living room floor of an apartment, a revolver near his right hand. There is a blood stain on the blue patterned rug and a bullet hole in the ceiling. On a low table sit an almost empty bottle of whisky and two glasses. The television is off.

If this were an episode of the French TV crime drama Engrenages (Spiral) which ran for eight seasons, or the more recent Netflix hit Lupin, the mystery would have been solved and the killer caught before the screen credits rolled.

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