Winners

While all the five students did a great job of researching the field of Forensic Science and preparing for the presentation, two students went above and beyond the call of duty in their participation and contribution to the team.
Mr. David Kellogg and I are pleased to announce the winner of the first prize ($100.00 Gift Certificate from Best Buy) is Thomas Reichert of ROWVA School District. The second prize winner ($50.00 Best Buy Gift Certificate) is James Dykeman of ROWVA School District. Congratulations to Tom and James!

Board Presentation

The students did a fantastic presentation on Forensic Science to the Carl Sandburg College Board of Trustees at their regular meeting on July 24th in Carthage, Illinois. The following were the topics that were presented:
•Thomas A. Reichert – Fingerprint Analysis
•Duncan L. Nall – Footwear Impressions
•Donald G. Von Kannon – DNA Analysis
•P. Ian Stewart – Post-Mortem Examination
•James N. Dykeman – Forensic Entomology

They were presented with their Certificates of Participation by the Board Chairman, Mr. John Huston.

Troubles with footprints

Footprint analysis is a great field in forensics but there are some problems with it. First of all a criminal can throw out his own shoes after the crime to avoid being identified or he can just wear someone elses shoes to make a false lead. Also in the event that a person may be still alive in a crime scene, EMTs will rush right over the prints causing more confusion. There's also weather to be conserned about with outdoor prints. These aren't like the footprints on the moon that will last forever, because theres rain and wind and erosion to worry about. Plus how long will indoor ones last anyway. What about the footprints that were set before the crime? Will those still be there. Maybe looking for latent prints is completely useless. It's these problems that make this area of forensics not as strong as say dna analysis or fingerprint examination, but the person did have to enter and leave the scene, and whether or not he had shoes or socks or was barefoot, he had to have left prints

Crime scenes

This information might be useful to everyone. When a crime is first reported there are things that must be dealt with first such as the victim in need of help or the perpatraitor having a weapon that must be secured. Then they must detain the eyewitnesses and interview them separately and whoever reported the crime. Then the scene is taped off along with any other crime scenes (places where body was found, where weapons were found etc.). If there isn't an emergency it is important not to disturb the body or any other evidence. Then the scene is searched in a very organized manner, like a grid system or a spiral one, or even one just a back and forth line system. There are many jobs on the crime scene ( of course that doesn't help preserving footprints but owell,) such as photographer, sketcher, measurer, evidence collector, and master note takers. After evidence is collected, transported, preserved, and stored carefully, the scene may be recreated either mentally or physically and adding in or throwing out witnesses testimonies. In the movie (12 angry men) the alleged murderer is found innocent not by finding evidence that leads to someone else but because the witnesses testimonies were insuffient.

Western

So we took our trip to WIU on saturday. Whille the trip was mostly geared towards western university itself, it did help show us some of the facilities that we would have at our disposal if we were to pursue a carrer in forensics.

Trip to Western

So Saturday we went to Western for a "discover Western day." It was mostly geared towards "advertising" the school, but we did get to learn about forensics. It was definitely worth it. All I am doing now is getting ready for the big presentation that we've been preparing for. Doing some last minute research, writing my speech, practicing what I am going to say...all the fun stuff. Wish me luck!

Western

The trip to WIU may not have been as hands on as the trip to chicago or to peoria, but we really did learn quite a bit about the importance of forensics. I think it was a good field trip to go to right before the presentation. As for the presentation i am currently working on my speech for my first slide only which will be mainly stressing why shoe prints are unique and the uses of shoeprint analysis. I am hoping to get it around a minute twenty so the rest of the time i can talk about procedures of lifting and photographing footprints. Theres so much info but so little time

Discover Western Day

Last saturday we went and visited Western Illnios Univercity while this trip seemed more geared towards getting people to come to there school than forensic science we learned some about their criminal justice program which is one of the best in the state so if I had plans to become a police officer that would probably be one of the best choices in the state to attend




Ian got a little tired after a hard day on discovering western and James was happy to lend him a shoulder

Requirements

In case they ask us the requirements of our field i found out that to become a forensic impressionist ( usually there are just impression analysists and not just footwear) they must have graduated from a 4 year college, majored in forensics, chemistry, or biology, know physics and photography, be able to distinguish little differences in prints, know the rules of evidence collection and chain of custody, and to be able to express complex findings clearly. Hopefully they won't ask us this because its boring but its good to know it just in case.

Power Point

Well, yesterday i got the PP put together, and got some input from the team members on a few changes for it. I still need to grammar check it (spell check is done). When we meet tuesday im sure that there will be some changed that need to be made, but for the most part i am confident that our PP is 95% complete.

See you all tomorrow!

Forensic Photography

I found some information on how they take the photos of the impressions they find at the crime scenes. They take lots of photos because it is cheap and very effective at recording info. When they find the print they usually take a photo up close, mid distance , and far away. Some states won't allow photos to be taken with anything else in the picture due to obstructing the view. But usually photos are take both with and without a ruler and a north indicator. Photos should be taken after every stage of the lifting process because lifting is dangerous and evidence must be obtained. They are usually taken at a 90 degree angle with a 45 degree angle flash to avoid distortion. Photographs help refresh investigators mind right before a court case and may reveal information that wasn't found before. Maybe ill include some of the photography in my speech.

15 days

There is 15 days until the Presentation and we've been in this intership for about 23 days, so there is still plenty of time to learn more on our topics. The more we know on our topics the better we will be able to freely talk on our topics for the presentation and not just read the slides. Today Tom put the slideshow together and it doesn't seem like it will be tacky (sound effects, stupid animations) but just very simple It seems that all that is left to do is figure out what we want to say as the show goes by. I have 3 slides so i'm hoping to spend about a minute on each slide. I'll probablly throw a few pictures in there too

Presentation

So yesterday we started putting together the presentation. We picked a format and made some final decisions. Then we went across the hall to learn from Jon with the Upward Bound guys. He actually had a lot of projects and learning materials that the Upward Bound-sters learned from. I'd say we already knew quite a lot, but there still would've been more to learn from if we had the time to actually go through the projects, but we still learned stuff anyway. Today, we sent Thomas our slides (except for me, since I had a little trouble making mine short enough, but they're done now) so that he could compile them into our big presentation. I'll send him mine tomorrow, and then we're having our run-through on Tuesday. Now I think I'll make some note cards.

Piecing it together

Today we mainly worked on our power point presentation. We all made our own little section and sent it to Thomas so we could out them all together. I felt my slides did not have very much on them, but I plan on talking a lot and saying some info that isn't on the power point, like cases where different techniques were used, where entomology can be applied, etc. Now I just need to write the speech...

Power Point

So i got just about everyone's PP slides fit into the presentation, just need Ian to send me his and then i will get to work with the animation formatting. Its looking really nice at this point, and i feel that we will have a great presentation for the board.

Working towards the presentation

Today we all started putting our power points together for the presentation in front of the board members Everyone is making a few slides and them sending them to tom who is putting them all together in one power point and making sure they all look the same its coming along nicely and i think that we will be ready for the meeting when it comes

Footprints and impressions. Random facts

I said in an earlier post that there wasn't a database for every shoe in the country, this is true, but i found out that the fbi does work with some shoe manufactuers to get a pretty good database of different brands and types of shoes. Everyones stride is different and it shows in how your shoes wear down; some walk mostly on the back of their shoes and some more on the sides, and if you're a runner they may be on the balls of the feet. Stride or longitudal distance from foot to foot can tell height, and the lateral distance can tell weight, because a long narrow stride wouldn't belong to a short fat man. This stuff paints a picture. Footprints can also make a trail to where items were stashed like gloves or weapons. If the same footprints show up in multiple crime scences then the crimes may be linked. If there are 3 different sets of prints then there were 3 people involved in the crime. Investigator's prints are also taken as a precaution, but they may wear surgical booties or walk on coasters to prevent excess prints. A few methods to avoid surface erosion where making casts of a print are practical too. Spraying hairspray on sand keeps the shape, blowing mud dry with a hair dryer, and using snow wax makes the surfaces retain shape. There is also a method for carpet that i can't remember.

Procedures

Since latent footprints can be invisible to the naked eye, it is very important not to disturb them when setting up a crime scene as to not destroy any evidence. Criminals may wear gloves to avoid fingerprints but most of them don't know about shoeprints so these are a great way to obtain evidence. When taping up a crime scene, the officer in charge should leave enough space for the entry and exit, because the criminal had to come in and out of the scene. Usually the room is made dark and prints are searched for with an oblique lighting source. Outside prints are usually searched for first due to weather. When an officer should enter a crime scene he should use a stepping into your own footsteps procedure as to not make any more prints than necessary. When prints are found it is important to photograph them before they are cast or lifted and in multiple angles with a scale included such as a ruler. When the casts are done they shouldn't be cleaned but left to dry for 2 days. Searching for footprints should deffinitely be one of the top priorities when searching a crime scene. Another interesting fact that can be obtained from shoe size is that the length of a persons foot divided by .15 equals their height. I have size 13 shoes but only 11.5 inch feet so if you do the math it will give you 74 inches which is pretty close to my height. Another interesting fact is that when carrying heavy weights your foot prints are actually deeper, and when running it is more exaggerated at the toe and heel regions

Problems!

So recently when I opened Skype, it says there's a .dll error and will close! I couldn't get it to work if I struggle with it, but a bigger problem was that the browser wouldn't let me do anything and asked me to update security certificates. I hit ignore, but that wouldn't always work. Eventually I realized my date and time were off...way off. Somehow it was August 22nd, 2009. I have no idea how that happened, but when I went to the auto update for time, it wouldn't work. I changed it manually, and that apparently worked. When I got past that, I delved back into research. Okay, so pathology-I was swarmed with a lot of information and thought, "what's important enough to squeeze into three minutes?" I honestly wonder if some of the things might be too graphic, though. Of all the things, why did I end up picking the creepiest? lol Actually, there is a lot of interesting information on the cellular level, but I'm afraid for the sake of the topic of forensics, I'm going to have to stick with autopsical information. Yet, I still find that interesting, too.

Excellent Posts!

Team, you are doing a fantastic job on this project. I like Tom's suggestion about putting your thoughts on slides for the presentation. Remember, statistics, facts and new breakthrough's in the field are always welcome! Keep up the good work.

More on footprints

After reading a very disturbing story of a man who was sawed in half and they found the killer using tool mark analysis, i found more info on impression analysis. I found out that footprints can be 2d like the one we lifted in peoria, or 3d meaning in mud or snow. these prints can be recreated by pouring dental stone to the side of the impressions so they pour into it and don't cause air bubbles(remember these things need to be persice.) Weather can severly disturb these prints, because it takes longer for dental stone to mold in cold weather, In hot weather snow may melt and the print can go along with it, and if it is in very thin dirt, the wind might just blow it away. 2d prints may be in two cases: positive or negative. In positive prints it is like steping into paint and walking around, but In negative prints, it is like the pool of paint having a big footprint shape missing from the pool. Footprints may tell use many things, such as entry point, number of people present and the sequence of events which is very important in recreating these crime scences.

Good Work

It looks like you folks are on the right track. It may be useful to map this out on paper or dry erase board when you get together. Remember to write down your goal before doing this. . .it will help direct your efforts.  Nice work, guys!

Baking in the DNA lab

Scienists found bones in gobi desert and found it was very easy to extract DNA from them the did a few experiments and found that because the bones had been basicly baked the cells broke open easyier and could extract more DNA with less bone so in a small bone fragment is discovered they could use this baking method to extact DNA and potentialy find who the bone belongs to

I spent some research time looking up the different life stages of the blow fly, the insect most associated with a rotting corpse. No matter the stage the insects are in, investigators should collect samples.
Egg: Fresh corpses usually have eggs in openings of the body (mouth, nose, ears, wounds). Eggs are important; they can be identified and aged.
Larvae: Maggots hatch from eggs and at first are concentrated where they hatch, but eventually move to other places of the corpse. Maggots shed their skin three times. The time between each shedding is called an “instar,” so maggots have three instars. Since each instar has different characteristics, the specific instar a maggot is in can be identified.
Puparium: After the third shedding, the maggot will sort of live inside its shed skin, which becomes hard and is called a puparium. This stage reminds me of the caterpillar metamorphosis because once the maggot leaves the puparium it is an adult blow fly, just like how the butterfly comes from a cocoon.
Adult: An adult blow fly doesn’t fly much in the first few days out of the puparium but develops quickly. Because of this, it is important for investigators to capture them.
By using their knowledge of the different stages and instars that blow flies go through, forensic entomologists can estimate a good post mortem interval. (Unfortunately the site I got this info from didn’t have how long each stage lasted.)

Presentation (IDEAS)

Hey all, i was thinking about how we can set up our presentation to the board at the end of this whole thing. Now we each only have 3 min, so its going to be tough to try and squeeze such a large field as forensic science (even broken up) into the time. I was thinking prolly the best way to work it out is for each of us to do a power-point presentation, timing each section to be precisely 3 minutes long. During the PP we can present different tools and instruments that apply to our specific field of forensics and quickly demonstrate their use. I feel this would be the most systematic and organized way of going about our presentation, and it would make our group look as if though we have a complete grasp of forensics.

My presentation topic

I've found a topic for my presetation. It will be Impression Analysis. It covers shoeprints, tire treads, and Tool marks. Like most branches of Forensic Science, it is based on the fact that everything is unique. All shoes, tires and tools are individualistic and may be traced back to the one present at the crime scene. Probably the most interesting thing that i found out is that even criminals that wear gloves will leave latent prints from the dirt, grease and oil on them. Of course since we don't have a database of every glove, there needs to be a lead as to who commited the crime, then gloves can be compared. We saw how they get the shoeprints at the crime lab. They apply special paper over the print and apply electricity to raise the dust left from the shoe print. Although most of these methods may be used as evidence, it might be hard to identify the exact shoe or the exact tire that left the mark, due to the fact that there isn't a database for all of these things. They might only be useful for class identification

DNA Everywhere

Forensic scientists find DNA just about anywhere because it is in all human cells that have a nucleus and they can find cell in all bodily fluids since the cells rub off into them so they can find DNA in spit, urine, semen even the oils secreted from your skin so you may leave a fingerprint that the police can not identify but they can often obtain skin cells from it and get a DNA fingerprint

Entomotoxicology

Entomotoxicology is a field in forensic entomology that deals with the analysis of the toxins found in carrion-feeding insects (or their shed casings or feces). Investigators can use this information to find which poisons were present in the body at the time of death. Before entomotoxicology, the determination of toxins present was nearly impossible because the body was so badly decomposed that intoxicated tissues and bodily fluids were useless. Ceratin toxins, such as cocaine, can speed the process of development up for some insects, which can impair the determination of a correct PMI; another reason why these substances should be analyzed in carrion feeders.
A few examples include the finding of phenobarbital in the larvae found feeding on the corpse of a woman with a history of suicide attempts. Or a 29 year old known to abuse drugs had maggots with cocaine in them found five months after he had last been seen.
Sometimes, entomotoxicology can help find where victims are from. A young woman's bopy was found decomposed in Inkoo, Finland. Larvae was recovered from the body, reared to adulthood, and found to contain low levels of mercury, which means that the woman lived a place with low mercury pollution. This assumption was proven correct when the woman was identified and found to have been a student in Turku, Finland (which I guess has some mercury pollution?).

Peoria Crime Lab

Yesterday, we got an early start and headed down to the Peoria County Sheriff's Department with the Upward Bound guys. We learned quite a bit about both the operations of a police station, as well as forensic information. Most of the information was about fingerprints and ways to find them, so Thomas probably benefited the most from yesterday. I was surprised by the number of ways to find fingerprints: from changing the lighting to using chemicals. We also got a little information on getting footprints (something interesting called a static lifter) and a little bit on entomology. We even got to hear about how our host and the Peoria Sheriff's Department assisted in the capture of serial killer Larry Bright a few years ago. The most interesting part for me other than that story was the technology they're starting to use. All the on board cameras in the cars are becoming digital and wirelessly transmit their footage onto both a computer and a server in the police department when they pull into the drive into the parking lot. I also liked their use of Adobe Photoshop. It was certainly some interesting stuff.

Crime Lab and anthropology

Yesterday we visited the peoria crime lab and one thing i noticed in particular is that everything needs to be very carefully recoreded in either photo or video as to not destroy any evidence. I thought anthropology would be very rarely used, but two times it was mentioned yesterday! The first time was the story of the serial killer who ground up the bones and the second was on the prime time crime story on abc. Anthropology is the study of human bones, usually on a skeleton that hasn't yet been identified, to find out things like the age, sex, height, and weight to find out who the skeleton belonged to. It also looks for things like the manner of death, and if it was a homicide then who was the murderer. Lots of math is used in this field especially to find out the height and weight. Methods of Forensic Anthropology are skeletal examination, dental analysis, facial reconstruction, bone scatter, and mitochondrial dna. Teeth are usually used to find out the age, and bone scatter is typically use to find time since the death. The other two are basically used to find out identity. These skeletons need to be identified to find out if there was a murder and if so who was the murderer. Due to tom's change in topic i think i might take up either trace evidence or impression evidence (whichever one has blood spatter), because we already have one doing pathology and one doing entomology, don't want the presentation to be too focused on death.

Peoria Crime Lab

Yesterday we piggy-backed with the Upward bound members on a trip to the Peoria Crime Lab. This turned out to be less hands-on as our trip to MSI, but benefited my research in Fingerprint analysis (im dropping trace materials, ONLY 3 MINUTES!!!) I learned more about the techniques used to recover and ID fingerprints... even off of dead bodies. I learned how different lighting can expose fingerprint in a clarity that would not be possible under normal circumstances.

Visit to a real crime lab

Yesterday we visited the crime lab in Peoria which was pretty cool we had several forensic techniques demestrated to us as well as seeing thier state the art car camera system Marty has been there for 6 years and worked on many cases one of the ones he told us about which i thought was most interesting was that of a serial killer in Peoria a few years ago who was rapeing and killing African Amercian prostatutes the police started bring in sex offenders and interviewing them and asking for bucal swabs which is swabing the inside with a qtip obtain cells for DNA anylisis the man the eventualy caught refused to cooperate and rather than throw his cigarette butts away he would stick them in his pocket so the police went and got a search warrent for his house and found bones in his fire ring so they brought him in again for questioning this time he made the mastake of droping one of his cigarette butts on the ground and Marty was happy to pick it up and send it to morton Illinois for DNA anylisis the test came back saying that his was the culprit and after they arrested him he conffessed to 8 rape/homicides DNA helped get another bad guy off the streets

Peoria Crime Lab

Yesterday, we and the Upward Bound kids went to the Peoria Crime Lab. It wasn't as hands-on as the Chicago trip, but I thought it was more varied in that several different types of processes were demonstrated to us. Marty (the officer that gave us the tour) showed us thier evidence processing, evidence room, on-car camera technology, photo processing. He also showed us some techniques used to find the bad guys, including analysis of shoe imprints, several types of fingerprints, as well as ways to photograph crime scenes and evidence. Then he showed us his can loaded up with kits and tools of all kinds to help take samples and do experiments at the scene of the crime. It was a lot of information in one day!
Anyways, entomology...I found a few new ways insects can contribute to an investigation other than PMI. If someone was incapacitated (bound, drugged, or just helpless), they may have some urine or fecal matter soaked into clothes or bed dressings. These secretions attract certain insects which can provide some new clues to antemortem and postmortem circumstances of the crime. Another new situation I found that I thought was really intriguing was the ability of DNA technology to evaluate blood found in the blood meals of bleed-feeding insects. The DNA of human blood can be recovered from the digestive tract of an insect that has fed on an individual...isn't that what they did on Jurassic Park?

Forensic Odontolgy.

Forensic Odontology or forensic dentistry is the use of dental records to solve crimes. Like our fingerprints, our teeth are unique. There are 5 sides to a tooth believe it or not and 32 teeth so 160 surfaces in all. Throw missing teeth, fake teeth, broken teeth, malposition of teeth, malrotation of teeth, odd shaped teeth, braces, fillings, and dental diseases into the mix and you can get a big variety of teeth. Basically what they can do with this is identify who people are when their face is disformed. There needs to be identification to begin the investigation of who did it. They do this by comparing dental records to the teeth found. The more work done on the teeth the more individualistic they are. Some people actually have had their name put on their prosthetic teeth. But Comparing dental records may have its flaws, because unlike fingerprints teeth can be changed which it is sometimes contraversial in using it as evidence in court cases. The UK relies on this so much because they lack a good fingerprint database like us. Forensic Odontology is also used in age estimation and in bite mark cases. Bitemarks are also contraversial because the marks may fade or be stretched as the skin is stretched. It might just be better to use DNA from the saliva for identification. Somehow age may be estimated too and ill begin looking into that as i have decided that my presentation topic will be Forensic Anthropology.

Pigs and Insects

Sorry again I was gone today (was registering for classes), but I was still able to do some research and post a blog.
Pigs will decompose in a very similar manner to humans, so they are used as test subjects by forensic entomologists, such as M. Lee Goff of Chaminade University in Hawaii.
It's also quite common for entomologists to take samples from a decaying corpse. If the samples include eggs or larvae, the young insects could be "raised" to adulthood in a lab. Additionally, insects can provide more than an estimation of a PMI; they could also tell if the body was moved and where the murder took place. And in some rare instances, insects have brought forth more momentous evidence. For example, a crushed grasshopper with a missing leg was found at a murder scene and his leg was found inside the pant cuff of the perpetrator! Another example includes insect bites found on the suspect that were also on the victim.

Today i was looking at other forms of DNA analysis other than Short tandem repeats (STR) which is used for DNA fingerprinting in crime labs I found one less commonly called Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) which works very similar to STR they just look at different things which makes me wonder why they dont use RFLP so much after further research i found out that RFLP requires a sample about the size of a quarter and is about 50% efective and STR is 90% efective with a stain the size of a pinhead so i see why RFLP isnt used anymore Short Tandem Repeats which we perfomed in Chicago is much more effective

Fingerpring Analysis

Hey all, sorry i missed yesterday. I did some research on Fingerprint analysis. Turns out that our fingerprints develop after 4 months in the womb, and stay that way till death. Every person has a different, permanent pattern, which makes them ideal for identification purposes. The raised skin that makes up the fingerprints is known as 'friction ridge skin' and is found only on the hands and bottoms of the feet. This skin is the only skin on the human body that does not grow hair. These ridges do not go unbroken on our fingertips, they actually have minor characteristics known as minutiae. These ridge characteristics can be defined as:
1: Ridge Ending: A ridge that ends abruptly
2: Bifurcation: A single ridge that divides into two ridges.
3: Lake: A single ridge that bifurcates and then reunites to continue as a single ridge
4: Island: A ridge that commences, travels a short distance, and then ends.
5: Dot: An independent ridge with appox. same length and width.
6: Spur: A bifurcation with a short ridge rather than a long one.
7: Bridge: A short ridge that runs between to parallel ridges (connecting them).





I found this info here: http://www.crimtrac.gov.au/systems___projects_fingerprint_analysis___the_basics.html

June 23rd

My internet has been down all day and this has been my first chance to blog and research. For the last hour or so I've been checking out a great website Ken linked me to. It's the University of Washington Pathology site. Admittedly, it was a little hard to find some information on forensic pathology, but what I did find was worth it. I also checked out the APA citation format, which I've never really heard of before. I'm not quite sure what the difference is between it and MLA, except for maybe how the paper would be written. If anybody else knows, would you like to clue me in? So I guess we're not meeting tomorrow, but I'll talk to you all on Skype, right? Until then.

Forensic Ballistics, ballistic fingerprints, and firearm microstamping

Today I looked at forensic ballistics which is the study of finding a bullet or cartrige and using the markings on it to trace the gun that shot it. How guns work in a nutshell is that a firing pin hits the cartriage at a place called the primer which causes an explosion that heats the powder and shoots the bullet. The central concept of forensic ballistics is that all guns leave distint markings on the cartriages, like fingerprints for humans. New York and Maryland have taken the leap to require all new guns to have a record of its cartraige markings, but it has yet to solve a single crime. Plus it is very easy to change the markings using household tools or you could simply change the parts of the firearm to make separate marks. Only 120,000 ballistic finger prints have been recorded out of 200 million which is less than 1 %, so ballistic fingerprinting may not be the best method of obtaining evidence. Another method that we might look forward to in the future might be firearm microstamping which is where a small ingraving is placed on the firing pin,ejector,barrel etc to make tracing the gun more practical. But this is a very contraversial method because some gun owners may feel an invasion of privacy.

The contravery of DNA Collection

I have recently been looking into DNA Analyisis and while i found a lot of information on Gel electrophrisis and how it works i also found some very interesting information on the contraversy behind DNA Analyisis. While nobody realy finds the actual process or results of DNA Analysis (also known a DNA Fingerprinting) contravercial in some cases people find the colection of DNA wrong. For example in several cold case opened up later police have secretly taken samples from subjects in the form of "trash" an example would be a used cigarete butt or spitt on a sidewalk because these sample are considered "trash" they are avalible to the public and the police therefore do not need a warrent to collect them taking and testing these "trash" samples have led several arrests and convictions in cold case files.

So I did some research on forensic entomology. I discovered that it is divided into three categories: urban entomology (involving insects that affect manmade structures and the human environment), stored products entomology (involving insects infesting stored products, such as food), and medicolegal entomology (referred to as medicocriminal entomology, involving insects that feed on decaying corpses).
Most of the information I found on forensic entomology was about determining the postmortem interval (PMI) of a victim. Depending on location, climate, weather, and time of day, different insects will be found on a decaying corpse. Also because adult flies first have to lay eggs on a body, the presence of eggs or larvae (maggots) means that the death wasn’t very recent.

Sources

A reminder. . .be sure to keep track of your sources of information.
There are style manuals in which you can check the correct form. My guess is that you would use APA since this is a science oriented field.
All "styles" (APA, MLA, etc) have the same basic informaton.

I suggest you keep a resource log. . .when you go to websites, it is important not only to have the address, but also to know something about who "did" the site and how credible the information might be.

What are the primary (seminal) journals in Forensics?

Vancouver severed feet

By the way, the most recent foot found in the Vancouver floating foot story was a fake. It wasn't a real female foot that was cut off, so a serial killer has become a little less likely.

Chicago Trip

Yesterday's trip to Chicago was quite interesting. When we got to the museum, we were divided up to do the lab. Duncan, Donald, and I were to work on blood spatter, while James and Thomas worked on trace evidence. I must say, blood spatter was as fun as it was educational; we got to make a mess by making different spatters and really did learn at the same time. When we went to apply our knowledge, it seemed quite obvious how the blood spatters developed, though I'm sure before the lab I wouldn't have known. All of us took part in the GEL electrophoresis, which is making a DNA fingerprint to compare suspect and crime scene DNA. At the end, we were told that forensic science was a collaborative effort between many different specialists and that no one person can do the entire investigation. There are people in fields from odontology (teeth analysis) to etymology (insect analysis) that can play a crucial role in an investigation. When we learned how widespread of a subject forensic science can be, Sam gave us the idea of dividing our presentation into different fields of forensic science between us. I claimed pathology, which I've always found interesting. I'm currently doing some research into that. Until next time!

blood spatter

Yesterday at Chicago one of the most intesting things I learned about was blood spatter (not splatter.) Before i didn't know that by just looking at a bit of blood you can find out information like the positions of the victim and perpetrater, direction blood traveled, what weapon was used to cause spatter, the number of blows struck, and direction of travel after injury. Blood droplets can be classified into Passive or Projected spatter. Passive drops look like circles when droped at a 90 degree angle and may be distorted if it doesn't land on something smooth and hard. If it drops at an angle it makes a shape that looks like an elipse with a tail pointing toward the direction the blood was traveling. The angle can be found by taking the width of it divided by the length to get the sine of the angle the blood was spattered at. Doing this with multiple drops can tell us the source of the spatter. If the spatter looks like it was from a mist of blood it traveled at a high velocity, but if it is more condensed with larger droplets, it was only medium.

Visit to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago

The trip was great! Despite the traffic we made it in time. The MSI was a fabulous place to be. Check out their website: http://www.msichicago.org/ You could spend a whole day there. The students learned a great deal about forensic investigation and the topic of forensic science. What a great start to this year's program!

Museum Field Trip

After four and a half hours and an encounter with a robotic man at McDonald's, we arrive at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago on the day of its 75th anniversary. We participated in a lab in forensic science where we were given clues on a crime and had to find who the culprit was.
We were introduced to some forensic techniques such as DNA and bullet analysis, blood splatter patterns, hair comparison, and tire tread patterns. The guy hosting the lab also talked a little more on forensics, including forensic entomology, the study of insects and its application to forensics. I thought this topic sounded interesting and I plan on researching it for the presentation next month.

What i learned in Chicago

yeasterday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry to do there advanced forensics lab the lab let us try some core stuff that forensic scientists use all the time my group did blood splatter anylisis and every one did gel electrophrisis and bullet analasis i thought it was pretty cool how they are able to tell what happened at a crime scene simply by a little blood splatter overall i think it was a great introduction to the many parts of forensic science

From now on i will be focusing on DNA anylasis

Chicago

Well, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry yesterday to do a forensics lab. This was a great way to kickoff our internship, as we were given the opportunity for hands-on learning of several key forensic sciences, including DNA gel electrophoresis, trace evidence (hair), bullet analysis and blood spatter analysis. The lab, i feel, will give us a solid foundation for our internship in forensic science.

With that being said, I am going to take Fingerprint analysis and trace evidence as my area of interest for the internship program's final presentation.

Well What Did You Learn?

Hey Guys,

How was the trip? Take a few minutes to tell me about the many things you learned? What topics are you going to work on today?

Hello Everyone!

I hope you had a great time in Chicago...I am sure it was very informative and insightful. Anyway please note we have another trip on Wednesday the 25th to Peoria County Crime Scene Lab. We will be going with the Upward Bound group to this site. Please arrive by 8:45am in the circle drive at CSC. I am not sure if we will be stopping for lunch (bring money to be on the safe side). We should return about 1pm. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Dave

Introduction

Hello,

I'm Ken Grodjesk.  I am in charge of the Teacher Education Program here at CSC. I have been part of this program since the beginning. This looks like a really cool group!

I can be a good sounding board for ideas. . .be sure to let me know. I'm on the Email Trail often.

My office is in C 110. You are welcome to stop by when you are on campus.

fingerprints

Since it was the first day i wanted to do something that interested me so i read about everything i could find on fingerprints. Patent prints are easy to see, but latent are clear and the kind you see on glasses, sort of transparent. As we all know no two humans have the same fingerprints and thats counting all ten fingers, so every finger has a unique print. Even identical twins have different prints. If you cut your fingers the prints grow back. Fingerprinting is the most common fingerprinting method in forensic science. Fingerprints are taken back to the lab to be analysized by dusting the print with a powder so it is visible, and then it is pressed onto a sheet and taken back to the lab to be compared with the enormous set of fingerprints the FBI has collected. Since Fingerprints are just secretions like sweat and amino acids placed on an object, if treated with a special substance they can tell us if the person was a smoker or a coffee drinker. Even though it is a very useful and basic method, dusting for prints can destroy valueable items that can be swabed for DNA analysis which is probably a more exact method

first day

Well on the first day i did about the same as every one else i found some basic stuff on the internet i also read an article in tuesdays USA Today about how they are useing DNA to catch thieves the article stated that rate at which tieves are caught doubles in cases that use DNA to identify the suspect so the are starting to train police officers to identify and collect biosubstances which would contain DNA

Day One

It turns out that all of us had gone to Wikipedia the night before to look up forensic science (I don't know if that is a testament to the "great minds" saying or Wikipedia), so we all basically learned the same things. We all mostly learned that forensic science relates to a broad spectrum of other sciences, i.e.: psychology, dentistry, anthropology, etcetera. Another thing we derived is that forensic science has a very long history, and has been around for centuries. We acknowledged that we're probably going to have a lot to learn in the coming month. Today's chat was spent mostly talking about what we're going to learn in anticipation of our trip to Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry tomorrow.

First Day...

Well, first day, so lets see what things ive dug up. Lets see, i found a simple definition (Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or to a civil action. But besides its relevance to the underlying legal system, more generally forensics encompasses the accepted scholarly or scientific methodology and norms under which the facts regarding an event, or an artifact, or some other physical item (such as a corpse, or cadaver, for example) are to the broader notion of authentication whereby an interest outside of a legal form exists in determining whether an object is in fact what it purports to be, or is alleged as being.) That being from wiki. I also found that forensics is usually separated into many different fields, blood spatter analysis, ballistics, fingerprint analysis, just to name a few.

Day One

first day, didn't find out a lot...just general info. i made a "forensics" folder in my favorites and just starting adding sites. I read up a little on blood splatter, cause of death, and DNA. I hope to learn more about forensics tomorrow when we go to Chicago and maybe get an idea of what to show at the presentation thats over a month away...

Introduction

Hi my name is Donald Von Kannon I graduated from Monmouth Roseville High School I will be attending Missouri University of Science and Technology and majoring in Biological Sciences I hope to eventualy become and a genetic engineer and work in the medical field, I pole vault, wrestle and play football, I also play the trumpet, In my free time I like to play video games

Introducing...

Hello, my name is Ian Stewart. I'm going to be a senior next year at ROWVA high school. I run track (100-200 meter dash/relays), am in Scholastic Bowl, Cross Country. I've played guitar for about two years now, but still spend most of my time listening to music (rock), playing games or just being on the computer. I think I'm more geek than nerd, but I'm not really sure what that means. I was planning to pursue a future in physics and/or astronomy, but lately have been thinking about computer sciences, but I believe I still have plenty of time to decide all of that. See you guys on Thursday.

Duncan

My Name is Duncan Nall and i'll be a Junior at United High School. I played basketball and track this year (Discus and 800) if anybody cares. In my free time i like to play guitar, run, listen to good music, or just hang out. I'm typically a pretty quiet person when talking to people i don't know, but as soon as i get to know them we're good.

My Intro

My name is James Dykeman. I graduated from ROWVA High School. I plan on going to U of I and majoring in Mathematics....

just trying this out

Welcome

Mr. Kellogg and I are delighted to welcome you to the Bright Minds Internship Program 2008. We hope you all enjoy your time and learn valuable information about the field of Forensic Science.

Welcome : Donald Von Kannon, Duncan Nall, Thomas Reichert, Ian Stewart and James Dykeman

Hi all.
First post.

Thomas Reichert

Hey, im thomas reichert. I just graudated from ROWVA Sr. High School and will be attending SIUC next fall and will major in Civil Eng. I was starting catcher for the baseball team that went to the elite eight this year, and am currently playing for the Oneida Legion Post 747 baseball team this summer. I live out in the middle of nowhere, by a huge hogfarm, which is kinda depressing seemings that i really dislike farming. Im a rather open person, which can be both a good or bad thing considering that i am also very, very blunt. But no worries, I am a friendly person.