Hair Helps Police Track Criminals
March 3rd, 2008 Posted by: Dr. Cox
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Water is not only good for your body — it’s good for the police! The general location a person drank water is recorded in their hair, showing where they have been in recent weeks and years. This could help police track the past movements of criminal suspects or unidentified murder victims.
âYou are what you eat and drink — and that is recorded in your hair,â co-author Thure Cerling, University of Utah, was quoted as saying.
Co-author Jim Ehleringer, also of the University of Utah, was quoted as saying, âWe have found significant variations in hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in hair and water that relate to where a person lives in the United States. âPolice are already using this to reconstruct the possible origins of unidentified murder victims.â
The new technique analyzed stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen incorporated in growing hair from water and food a person consumes and from the air they breathe.
Researchers say this means a single hair can help determine a personâs location during recent weeks to years depending on the length of the hair sample and how much time it took to grow. The results cannot pinpoint an exact location but rather a general geographic area.
Besides police, researchers say the new analysis tool may help anthropologists and archaeologists as well. For example, it can help them analyze ancient hair samples to find out where Native Americans migrated. And the new method could also have medical uses.
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SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online Feb. 25, 2008