Analysing The Evidence On DNA

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. We're here in Boise, Idaho, talking, broadcasting from the campus of Boise State University, and we're going to talk about the use and abuse of DNA evidence, excuse me. Forensic techniques to investigate crime scenes have been coming under increasing scrutiny.

Questions have been raised about fingerprint interpretation, blood-spatter analysis, bite-mark and fiber analysis, but DNA, DNA has been held up as a gold standard in forensics. DNA found at the crime scene matches the suspects? Case closed most of the time.

But my first guest says we should be taking a closer look at how we use DNA. Not all DNA evidence is created equal. Sampling techniques are changing, so the standards for using DNA evidence should be changing, too, he says.

Greg Hampikian is director of the Idaho Innocence Project and a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Criminal Justice here at Boise State University. Welcome to the program.

GREG HAMPIKIAN: Thanks very much.

FLATOW: Walk us how through DNA evidence is collected at the scene of a crime.

HAMPIKIAN: Well, that's changing, but, you know, in a lot of our rural communities, it hasn't changed much at all in 20 years, probably. So you don't always have a CSI team and booties and...

FLATOW: It's not like on television, in other words.

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Analysing The Evidence On DNA