Forensic Identification of single dyed hair strand now possible
In crime scene investigations, a single strand of hair can make a huge difference in the Investigation. If a fallen strand of hair with root cells attached is found, a DNA test can reveal the identity of a criminal; unfortunately, this seldom happens. Even though other types of DNA analysis can be conducted using the "mitochondrial DNA" embedded in the hair shaft itself, such tests are not sufficient to reliably identify a person and usually call for additional evidence.
In a recent study published in Analytical Sciences, scientists at the Tokyo University of Science, Japan, developed a strategy for identifying criminals from a single strand of hair, state the fact that hair dyes are very much common now a days. Their approach involves finding out if two individual strands of hair belong to the same person based on the composition of hair dye products found on them. To do this, they employed two well-known analytical methods: surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis.
Do you know about these techniques?
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