Oh man. The Bigfoot hunters are gonna go nuts over this tech. Cryptozoologists too - there’s some recent supposed sightings of the Tasmanian Tiger that have been getting a lot of attention.
Really cool tech, I wonder if law enforcement could use it to detect a range of time someone has been at the scene of a crime based on the concentration of dna found. Could really help solve some crimes when you’ve got no leads.
Forensic sciences are in general a big scam used by prosecutors to put innocent people on jail. Hope this dosen’t become the new “hair evidence”.
Yeah, the American Bar Association said “Telling a jury it is implausible that anyone besides the suspect would have the same DNA test results is seldom, if ever, justified.”
Cross contamination could likelyonly get worse if you include airborn or otherwise mobile DNA as part of your samples.
Need an aquatic version for Nessie.
I seem to remember the BBC lighting the whole pond up with sensors at the same time, and confirming it’s empty.
That actually happened a while back - https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago717609.html
This is terrifiying.
It sounds like it’s literally just catching hairs and things like that, though. We already knew we leave DNA samples everywhere, so that’s not more scary than DNA analysis already was.
This is really exciting tech. The potential for this is huge, especially when this data is compared with other population estimates, which should get it more accurate. All while being non-invasive to the species.
I think one of the most interesting applications of this technology is linking suspects to crimes. One of the key pieces of evidence used in convictions is proving that the suspect was at the scene of the crime. If they can’t provide a solid alibi, or reason for them to have been there, then they’re basically screwed.
