Too bad this is in the middle of the afternoon! I would love to hear what the forensics experts have to say, especially with all the recent scientifically critical work on the veracity of those techniques. I wonder if they will explore the new advances that are becoming a daily discovery, from cloning to reading personal genomes. Protect your genome!:

Genetics Workshop
Sorting Out the Truth in Race

For years our society has been plagued by racial categorizations and stereotypes. But with the accelerated advancement of science in areas like biotechnology and genetics, what will become of these? This workshop addresses this issue and more, including education about growing dangers, how your community could be affected, and what you can do about it. (continue reading…)

I have written before about how our culture puts so much trust and faith into criminal forensics. Paraded as fact and completed almost instantly in the countless crime procedural shows that grace network television, true life forensics is far from authority and its science credentials are finally being questioned.  The NY Times science section has two articles that demonstrates well how both of these perceptions clash. One, “Plugging Holes in the Science of Forensics” , shows how science organizations look to research the techniques in order to demonstrate their efficacy by using the same rigorous process of peer reviewed science: (continue reading…)

a very entertaining but disturbing story (from slashdot): (continue reading…)

Last week, I wrote to you about artist’s Paul Vanouse and his amazing work bringing to light how flawed the science of forensics is. I found this NY Times article recently about studies by the National Academy of Sciences on this same topic (including how backlogged they are), and it’s far from good:

(continue reading…)