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Here is an article from the BBC, does anybody think this will help catch more criminals? The first line made me laugh though I have to say. I thought finger prints could already help the police catch a baddie.
Fingerprints could soon help police narrow down their list of suspects by giving clues about the lifestyle of whoever left the prints at the scene of a crime.
Researchers in the UK are uncovering the ways fingerprints are changed by age, smoking, drug use and even some personal grooming products.
The work also promises to help obtain good quality copies of prints that have gone unnoticed for days or weeks.
Related work aims to find prints on guns and bomb fragments that are often among the most difficult to recover.
Led by Dr Sue Jickells from Kings College, London, the work on getting more from fingerprints started by looking at the chemical components of prints and how they change over time.
Dr Jickells said much of the material left behind when people touch anything are fat molecules, or lipids.
"There are a lot of lipids in fingerprints," said Dr Jickells, "and there are a lot of possibilities for that."
Fingerprints could soon help police narrow down their list of suspects by giving clues about the lifestyle of whoever left the prints at the scene of a crime.
Researchers in the UK are uncovering the ways fingerprints are changed by age, smoking, drug use and even some personal grooming products.
The work also promises to help obtain good quality copies of prints that have gone unnoticed for days or weeks.
Related work aims to find prints on guns and bomb fragments that are often among the most difficult to recover.
Led by Dr Sue Jickells from Kings College, London, the work on getting more from fingerprints started by looking at the chemical components of prints and how they change over time.
Dr Jickells said much of the material left behind when people touch anything are fat molecules, or lipids.
"There are a lot of lipids in fingerprints," said Dr Jickells, "and there are a lot of possibilities for that."
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