Science and crime fighting have been inexorably linked for more than 18 centuries, since the Chinese physician and judge, Song Ci, applied his advanced techniques to solve crimes in Hunan Province. Today in crime laboratories, scientists and technicians assist police departments and prosecutors by using a wide range of disciplines, including almost every field of the physical, life, and computer sciences. For example, while a toxicologist might be working to identify a complex designer drug used in a date-rape case, a bio-technician might be trying to identify a murderer by amplifying DNA collected at a crime scene, and a forensic analyst might be searching for evidence in a computer hard drive. Whatever their role, crime lab personnel have come to rely heavily on labo- ratory inf

Join for free to read