Men and women's hands can be distinguished just from their scent
5 July 2023
Scent compounds released by your hands can be used to determine gender, which may be useful in figuring out information about crime scenes
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AI clears up images of fingerprints to help with identification
28 June 2021
An AI that can repair blurred or distorted images of fingerprints lifted from crime scenes could make identifying people easier, but it is unclear whether such evidence would stand up in court
Trees and shrubs might reveal the location of decomposing bodies
3 September 2020
Botanists are teaming up with forensic anthropologists to work out whether there are detectable changes in the appearance of trees and shrubs growing near decomposing bodies
Simulating dead bodies could help calculate an accurate time of death
29 May 2020
Forensic scientists currently use basic temperature measurements to determine time of death, but a 3D simulation of the entire body could give much more accurate estimates
A fingerprint can show if someone has taken cocaine or just touched it
6 February 2020
A person who has ingested cocaine will excrete a compound that can be detected from a single fingerprint, even if they have washed their hands
Some people are exceptionally good at recognising voices
22 January 2020
People who have a knack for recognising faces are also good at recognising voices, a skill that could be useful for police surveillance operations
Modern forensics solves Stone Age murder mystery after 33,000 years
3 July 2019
A forensic analysis of a 33,000-year-old skull finds a clear explanation for the mysterious pattern of fractures preserved in the bone: it was murder
Bacteria could identify month-old suspicious stains at crime scenes
13 May 2019
Forensic investigators may be able to use a suspicious stain’s microbiome to determine its origin, even after a month of being exposed to air
Exclusive: DNA solves Rudolf Hess doppelgänger conspiracy theory
22 January 2019
Adolf Hitler's deputy flew to Scotland in 1941 and was imprisoned for the rest of his life. But was the man in Spandau really Rudolf Hess? Now a DNA test has revealed the truth
Police can now use millions more people's DNA to find criminals
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Consumer genetic databases are becoming powerful tools for identifying criminals, and a new technique could link you to forensic data held by US police
