Obviously you have to have a sample of the person’s DNA to know their genotype at those loci, so it only really makes sense as a plot point if you just have a tiny sample but you want to leave a larger amount to be sure that the forensic team finds it.
And fwiw the plot point in Elementary that Holmes figured it out because only those 13 loci were present (through locus-specific PCR amplification) is technologically out of date:
This one’s just pure stupidity: why did they think that stealing the newspapers would ensure people didn’t learn about this important story?
Can you say “Streisand effect”? I thought so.
Well, look at the title of this thread.
“Steal all you want! We’ll print more and say our circulation just doubled!”
But it’s at least as easy to take your actual tiny sample and magnify all of it. That’s what PCR does.
About the only way it makes sense to only generate a few loci is if there was some intangible step in the information transfer: Like, a lab in China had the original sample, analyzed it, and sent the analysis over the Internet to a lab in the US, which synthesized those loci from scratch.
Heh. Many years ago, that was basically the response the OC WEEKLY had when someone right-wing asshole started stealing all the papers from the distribution points where they had been set out (free for the taking, I feel obligated to point out).
Hey, thanks for helping us boost our apparent circulation. Now we can bump up the prices for ad space!
Conventional PCR amplifies specific loci, not the whole genome. That was the plot point in Elementary - only 13 loci were present, not genomic DNA. The DNA fingerprinting forensic test still worked as normal, since that too used conventional PCR to amplify just these 13 loci. But when Holmes suspected that the DNA was fake, they checked and realized only these 13 loci were present, not genomic DNA.
Whole Genome Amplification has been around for a long while, but it’s technically more challenging. It certainly would have been possible to do WGA from just a few cells in 2013 when that Elementary episode was made, but presumably convenient to ignore it for plot purposes. You could still distinguish amplified genomic DNA from an original sample, but less straightforward to explain how to a lay audience.
Nothing online as yet but streaming audio from a Kankakee radio station reports an armed robbery of a vehicle in the 200 block of North Hobbie was recently thwarted when the gun fell out of the would-be thief’s pocket. Would-be thief grabbed the gun and ran off.
Practice makes perfect. He’ll be back. (Yes, I did just assume their gender, but I’ll bet a Jackson I got it right).
A quote from the driver (the “muggee”): “Young man, did you just drop that gun? On the ground?!? You need to take that home right now and clean it off. Never rob anyone with a dirty weapon, if you have any pride in your work. Now, git!”
Popular Science magazine, a publication that ostensibly cares about scientific accuracy, ran an article about megalodon using an AI-generated photo of an extremely chonky shark-looking thing that has nose teeth and multiple superfluous fins.
It reminds me of the real life case of John Schneeberger.
He was a physician in Canada who was accused of sexually assaulting a patient of his. He kept passing DNA tests, because the samples of blood they drew didn’t match the sperm samples taken from the patient.
He was eventually caught in a different instance because they took oral and hair samples instead of just blood.
He finally revealed how he’d fooled the testing: he’d taken a vial of someone else’s blood, added some anticoagulants, and implanted it in his arm. When the authorities tried to draw his blood, the needle was accessing the hidden vial.
Somewhat more detailed story here – the Kankakee Daily Journal might have a longer version later.
I’m more impressed with that than “I was abducted and forcibly tattooed to resemble the perpetrator.”
Glad he got caught, though.
There was an Elementary like that, too. IIRC, the perp had a bone marrow transplant, so his blood DNA didn’t match the rest of his DNA. And he would have got away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling consulting detectives!
I’m not sure if this belongs in this thread but I’m not sure where else to put it. Certainly there are people with too much money in the world and it would be criminal not to try and take it from them. What could possibly go wrong?
Alien invasion. Check out the photo of the dining room in that article.
All superyachts can dive 820 feet.
Once.
Like climbing Mt Everest is deep sea diving. It only counts if you survive to come down/up at the end.