DESI Gives Fingerprinting Some New Respect

Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 11:14 in Physics & Chemistry

Fingerprints don't get a lot of respect on television shows like CSI these days - but they are about to make a comeback. A new technology developed at Purdue University can detect trace amounts of explosives, drugs or other materials left behind in fingerprints and can even distinguish between overlapping fingerprints left by different individuals - a difficult task for current optical forensic methods. A team led by R. Graham Cooks, Purdue's Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry, has created a tool that reads and provides an image of a fingerprint's chemical signature. The technology can be used to determine what a person recently handled. Read More...

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