Archive for the ‘Forensics’ Category

Forensic specialists help reverse-engineer accidents

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

Kansas City Journal reports on the importance of having forensic engineers.

Two men were pouring concrete in Olathe at a construction site — one was inside the truck, directing where the chute was, and the other was directing the chute on the ground on top of the forms.

The operator swung the .Read more...

Car Thieves Utilize New Technologies

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

The New York Times looks at the rise of car thieves utilizing new technologies.

The sight of partially dismembered cars left up on blocks was fairly common decades ago, when it came to symbolize cities lost to crime. But wheel and tire thefts are now resurgent around the country, thanks to .Read more...

Smithsonian Scan Man Documents History

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Bruno Frohlich, the scan man, is profiled by the Washington Post.

The Smithsonian Institution owns 137 million things. Over the past 15 years, Frohlich, it seems, has scanned them all.

Okay, not quite. But if he had enough time, he would.

“This is my hobby,” Frohlich says of his job.

In 1996, Siemens Corp. donated a used medical .Read more...

Statistics, Bill James, and Serial Killers

Friday, May 20th, 2011

Baseball (and statistics) celebrity Bill James of Boston Red Sox fame is turning his focus to serial killers. Wired Magazine looks at James and his new book:

In addition to wondering about slugging percentages and pitching records, though, James has long been asking questions like: Why do some crimes become more .Read more...

Examining Osama’s DNA Identity Test

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

One aspect of the news regarding Osama Bin Laden was the rapid DNA match that confirmed his identity. Kit Eaton at Fast Company magazine takes a look at ‘DNA matching‘ and how it was used by the military.

DNA matching (also known as genetic fingerprinting) is different to full DNA sequencing–a .Read more...

Post-Mortem on PBS

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

 

PBS and Frontline recently premiered a disturbing documentary examining the coroner profession called ‘Post-Mortem’. “A dysfunctional system in which there are few standards, little oversight, and the mistakes .Read more...

Charting Organized Crime

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Wired Magazine asks, “Just how organized is crime?”

The Doctor Taking On Doctored Photos

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

BusinessWeek profiles Hany Farid, an expert on Photoshop forensics.

The Dartmouth College computer scientist is developing digital forensics software that can instantly tell whether an image has been manipulated, and what make and model of camera captured it. It’s “exactly like gun ballistics,” says Farid, 44. “If Photoshop .Read more...

Understanding the Stuxnet Worm

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

The New York Times works to understand the Stuxnet Worm.

The Rarity of Fingerprints

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Fingerprints in the New York Times.

Researchers have found a way to mathematically calculate the rarity of a fingerprint.

Although fingerprints are unique to every individual, crime scene prints are usually incomplete patterns taken off doorknobs or glass.

Knowing the rarity of a partial print could be useful to forensic scientists who .Read more...

Microsoft’s Anti-Piracy Methods

Monday, January 17th, 2011

The New York Times looks at Microsoft’s fight with pirates:

The arrival of organized criminal syndicates to the software piracy scene has escalated worries at companies like Microsoft, Symantec and Adobe. Groups in China, South America and Eastern Europe appear to have supply chains and sales networks rivaling those of .Read more...

Nuclear Forensics Skills Declining

Monday, December 27th, 2010

The New York Times reports:

The nation’s ability to identify the source of a nuclear weapon used in a terrorist attack is fragile and eroding, according to a report released Thursday by the National Research Council.

Such highly specialized detective work, known as nuclear attribution, seeks to study clues .Read more...