(Science) The Science of Reconstruction & CSIght

Question 1

Who was Angela Gallop?

Answer 1

She was a British forensic scientist in the 1980’s, tasked with collecting and analyzing evidence at crime scenes

Question 2

What made Angela Gallop special?

Answer 2

She recreated crime scenes to find flaws, like reconstructing the past

Question 3

What happened in the murder of Roberto Calvi?

Answer 3

Roberto Calvi was a banker with connections to the Italian mafia who supposedly committed suicide by hanging. However, through Angela’s recreation using the same clothes, age and scaffolding, she found out Calvi couldn’t have done it on his own, and proved that it was a murder. However, nobody was brought to justice

Question 4

What is the CSI effect?

Answer 4

In the series Crime Scene Investigation, the main characters - forensic scientists, found a lot of crime evidence, which could lead to real court juries thinking that scientific evidence can be found easily and it’s the only thing that’s useful, not the psychology, alibis, motives,…

Question 5

How to combat the CSI effect?

Answer 5

The prosecution can combat the CSI effect by bringing it up. This can screw up both the prosecution and defense, depending on the case. It also affects the labs, as they’d have to work extra hours to find scientific evidence

Question 6

What are the 2 types of evidence?

Answer 6

Physical evidence (juries tend to care more about)
Evidence from people

Question 7

Fake vs Real Alibi

Answer 7

Real alibi: only the story with no additional details, will get angry if asked about it as he’s already told the whole story

Fake alibi: change the story when presented with additional information, can contradict their own story

Question 8

Explain ALS

Answer 8

A device that provides light at a specific wavelength that humans can’t normally see, then by using goggles, we can find physical evidence we couldn’t before like bodily fluids, latent prints and fibers,…

Question 9

Explain Toxicology

Answer 9

The study of poisons & its effects on living systems, or inside someone’s body. Can be used for drugs & alcohol test or determine which poison killed the victim

Question 10

Explain Ballistics

Answer 10

The examination of evidence from firearms used in a crime. Ballistic markings are distinctive marks a gun leaves on bullets it fires. This can be examined to see which gun fired it

Question 11

Explain BPA

Answer 11

Bloodstain pattern analysis includes biology of the blood, the physics (velocity, cohesion) and math (distance, angle, geometry). Analysts can answer a lot of questions through the use of bloodstain, and can even contradict their own or an alibi’s evidence through the story the blood tells.

Question 12

Explain the differences between patent and latent print analysis

Answer 12

Patent prints: visible to the human eyes or cameras

Latent prints: can only be captured using ALS

Question 13

How do analysts use patent and latent prints? (steps)

Answer 13

1. Analyze to find biological/physical details
2. Compare to suspects’ prints
3. Evaluate to see if these were truly from the crime scene
4. Verify by asking another scientist to repeat the process, if they get the same conclusion => correct

Question 14

Explain Entomology

Answer 14

The study of insects to determine time and place of death. Entomologists analyze flies and beetles around the body as most insects only get close to a body when it’s dead

Question 15

Explain Ecology

Answer 15

Analyze the relation between the victim and the environment, aka crime scene. They analyze the temperature, ground, water, oxygen and minerals in the scene to link it to the murder and victim

Question 16

Explain forensic genetics

Answer 16

The study of data found in DNA at a crime scene. Who has that DNA and connecting that person to the crime scene.

Scientists would often find a matching DNA from the database, but if not, they match it with a similar DNA and then find a suspect that looks like the person

Question 17

Explain DNA phenotyping

Answer 17

Matching the killer’s DNA with a guy with similar DNA, if they do not look like the killer at all, they aren’t a suspect

Question 18

Geolocating with stable isotopes

Answer 18

Like carbon dating but on murder cases. We have isotopes in our environment, and each area has different isotopes so scientists can map the origin of the victim using the isotopes in their body

Question 19

Explain cloud forensics

Answer 19

In cyber crimes, hackers can use the internet to infiltrate devices to destroy it or request money. Cloud forensics can figure out who accessed the internet and the device’s location

Question 20

Forensic sketch of Abe Lincoln’s assassination

Answer 20

Before advanced technology, moments of murder had to be sketched. In the murder of Lincoln, using a lot of witnesses and scientific evidence, they created an accurate forensic sketch of the murder, even though everybody seemed to have extreme expressions, probably due to each witness’ dramatic testimony

Question 21

Apple Daily making animations of murder cases without camera evidence

Answer 21

Jimmy Lai, a Chinese media guy introduce Apple Daily, a newspaper that combined politics and business, but by using colorful tabloids and extensive graphics. He then founded the YouTube channel “Next Media Animations”, focused on Western news. The channel has animations such as the Killer Whale attack with no real footage, Gordon Brown - UK’s PM abusing his staff. But the most popular one is the Tiger Woods car crash, using a mix of real pictures and animated fight and accident

Question 22

Tiger Woods car crash and NMA’s “artwork”

Answer 22

NMA made an animation to dramatically show how Tiger Woods crashed his car. The facts and media shown were pretty accurate at first. But then NMA suddenly accuses Elin Nordegren, Tiger’s ex-wife with no evidence, except for the fact that she once had an affair with someone else. Not only that, NMA made an animation showing Elin bumping with a golf club on Woods’ car, leading to the accident.

Question 23

Tiger Woods car crash and NMA’s “artwork”

Question 24

Jurassic Park

Answer 24

The archeological findings of dinosaurs and popularization of paleoart lead Spielberg to think of a movie surrounding these creatures. Jurassic Park was the first movie to introduce de-extinction to the big screen in a science-fiction way. The scientists edit broken dinosaurs DNA using ones from frogs, and raising them like zoo animals.

Question 25

Jurassic World

Answer 25

A soft reboot of Jurassic Park, where now instead of adding missing code to the DNA, accurately recreating history, they edited it to make the dinosaurs much bigger. This is why Jurassic World is considered more of a fantasy.

Question 26

Ads & Disads: Resurrection Biology / De-extinction

Answer 26

Benefits:
+ Looking at how animals long in the past functioned
+ Fill holes in the evolution theory
+ Impact the environment & food web
+ Sergey Zimov claims that if we bring back the wooly mammoth, they can slow down global warming

Non-Benefits:
+ Money spent on bringing animals back can be used on endangered species
+ It’s ok for private companies to attempt to bring animals back, but the government shouldn’t do it, as explained
+DNA is the key element to de-extinction. However, 50% of the DNA code is lost every 520 years, making it impossible to bring back dinosaurs, who existed 6.8 million years ago.

Question 27

Back Breeding

Answer 27

• Artificially breed the extinct species from their descendants.
• Doesn’t bring the species back but some genetic traits of it.

Question 28

Interspecies Cloning

Answer 28

Only method where humans can bring back 100% of extinct species. We take a full genome from a cell of the extinct species and put it in the nucleus of a living species, then by establishing pregnancy in that species, we can clone the extinct animal. Scientists love this method, even though it’s only possible on species that didn’t extinct a long time ago.

The only successful attempt is of a normal sheep, but sheep weren’t extinct, so it’s not de-extinction

Question 29

Genetic Engineering

Answer 29

Scientists manipulate the genomes of a living species that look like the extinct one to make a new species that look like the extinct one, or to fill in the blank code of a broken DNA with the code of a similar living species.

CRISPR is a tool to insert the genetic material into a genome of a closely related living species, creating a hybrid that looks similar to the extinct species. This is, however, not 100%.

Question 30

Technology carries de-extinction

Answer 30

Nowadays, it is much cheaper and takes less time to extract an extinct species’ DNA, especially with our technology, AI and multidimensional databases.

AI has the ability to learn the pattern of a genetic code, and fill in the broken code in much less time, and they can also create embryos of these extinct species.

Multidimensional databases help with storing genetic codes in a cheap, simple way.

In the 90’s, it took 1 billion dollars and 13 years to extract DNA, now, it takes around 20 minutes and $600.

Question 31

Criterias to determine whether a species can be de-extinct

Answer 31

1. The more recent, the better, as the DNA has broken that much
2. Nonmigratory, as it’s easier to find its DNA in one area only
3. Monogamously (one partner), as it helps scientists control the breeding and make it genetically closer to the original
4. If the edited infants are similar sized to the normal ones, the pregnant animal might not be able to carry it
5. If the newborns depend on their host animal, they will behave just like it and not in the way it did before extinction, ruining the whole point

Question 32

K-T boundary

Answer 32

The geological boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, which occurred around 66 million years ago. There were dinosaurs in the former but not the latter, because an asteroid hit Earth between these periods. It is now a layer of iridium, and it helps archeologists determine which period these fossils lived, by comparing it to the K-T boundary.
This is also the main source of evidence that an asteroid hit Earth

Question 33

Revive & Restore (w/ names)

Answer 33

A foundation that wants to enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species. They tend to fund resurrection attempts, and were co-founded by Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan

Question 34

Black-footed ferrets

Answer 34

An endangered species of ferrets in North America. Even though they are important to the North American biodiversity, they are endangered as they don’t do too much sex with each other. Funded by the Catalyst Science Fund, Revive & Restore try to extract as much DNA from the species as possible, with hope that they can clone the species using genetic material from San Diego’s Frozen Zoo.

Question 35

Tasmanian Tiger

Answer 35

A species of tiger in the ice age with saber-like teeth. They evolved in Australia 5 million years ago, then got stuck in Tasmania, a lonely island south of Australia. It extinct in the 20th century due to habitat loss, hunting and disease. Andrew Pask, a biologist at the University of Melbourne claims that the Tasmanian Tiger is the best candidate for de-extinction as only 5% of its DNA was missing, and the 5% is repetitive so you can fix the problem by finding the repetition

Question 36

Christmas Island Rat

Answer 36

Tom Gilbert and Jian-Qing Lan tried to bring back the Christmas Island rat as it went extinct in 1908 and is closely related to the Norway rat, which scientists have studied thoroughly and whose complete genome they have and can modify. They extracted the genome multiple times using the Norway rat as a reference, but even after that, 5% were still missing, and that 5% held a lot of its defining characteristics

Question 37

American Chestnut

Answer 37

A species of trees native to the North East of USA. During the 20th century, the American Chestnut was driven to extinction due to a fungus, and for the last 2 decades, Sara Fitzimmons, the director of restoration of the American Chestnut Foundation decided to add a gene that makes the species immune to the fungus. The trees are now critically endangered but at least it’s not disappearing on a big scale

Question 38

Wooly Mammoth

Answer 38

The Wooly Mammoths survived until 1650 B.C, and their extinction was the result of hotter climate and mass hunting. 2 specimens in the Arctic from 4000 and 45000 years ago were recently found, meaning they may have some DNA. They then will use AI to compare a mammoth’s DNA with an asian elephant, if it matches, we can bring the mammoths back.

If not, we can breed an egg cell from the asian elephant and sperm cell from the wooly mammoth, then back-breed them to have the mammoth’s DNA more dominant and extremely close to the wooly mammoth.

Scientists can also fill in the blank DNA with asian elephants’ DNA using SPNCR technology (genome editing). This technology is led by George Church hoping to introduce the mammoths to the Pleistoscene Park in Serbia where they won’t overheat.

Bringing back the wooly mammoths from just 2 DNA samples won’t give us a wide variety of mammoths, therefore there will be incest and genetic problems. On top of that, wooly mammoths traveled in large groups and our small ones will make them depressed. Last but not least, mammoths will need to have babies with asian elephants, which are already endangered.

Question 39

Bucardo

Answer 39

A species of ibexes in Western Europe, where there were a lot of goats and sheep, because of the competition and hunting, they couldn’t get any food and reproduce, therefore went to extinction.

Before the last Bucardo, Cecilia, died when a tree fell on her in 2000, scientists, led by Dr. Alberto Fernandez-Arias took her DNA and froze it until 2009 when they cloned her.

Out of the 500 goats, only one was pregnant with Cecillia, but because of a lungs problem, the Bucardo died after a few seconds. This is a big step towards de-extinction

Question 40

Passenger Pigeon

Answer 40

As a result of exploitation, habitat loss and hunting, the passenger pigeons went extinct in the 20th century. Ben Novak, a scientist from Revive & Restore sequenced the DNA of the species’ cousin, the band-tailed pigeon, with hopes that this unique 3/4 passenger 1/4 band-tailed pigeon breed will be revived

Question 41

Moa

Answer 41

A type of Emu in New Zealand that went extinct in the 15th century due to hunting. In 2017, a team of scientists at the University of Adelaide led by Mike Lee used genome editing to create a chicken embryo with some of Moa’s genetic traits, using CRISPR-Cas9. Because this embryo doesn’t have all of the Moa’s traits, it’s just considered a weird hybrid, not de-extinction

Question 42

Dodo

Answer 42

A species of bird that couldn’t fly and lived on the island of Mauritius. Because they had no predator on the island, the Dodo didn’t act when being hunted, which led to their extinction in 1681. The strategy to bring back the Passenger Pigeon and get the Black-Footed Ferret out of endangerment could also work with the Dodo. The species closest to the Dodo is the Southeast Asian Nicobar pigeon.

Question 43

Auroch

Answer 43

The ancestors of modern cows who were bigger and had horns. They were a key part of the Western European ecosystem, but it changed, and so the Aurochs went extinct. Scientists want to bring back the Aurochs to the farmlands, and so several attempts have been made to bring them back

Heinz and Lutz Heck, 2 zookeepers, wanted to have cows that looked like the Aurochs in German fields and their zoos, so they back-breeded cows to look like them in the 1930’s

Hermann Goring, a Nazi, also wanted to bring back the Aurochs as he though the species were superb cows for superb Nazis

Nowadays, Ronald Goderie wants to bring them back to the Coa Valley of Portugal to help nature using more precise back breeding and relying on cave paintings and descriptions like from Julius Caesar

Question 44

PMFR

Answer 44

A technique that uses anatomical knowledge of the skull to flesh out an individual’s face. This can be used to reconstruct faces of ancient humans or animals, or can also be used to identify victims of crime where their identity is not known but their skull remains.

Question 45

PMFR in forensic

Answer 45

Can be used to identify a victim. This method assisted in identifying the victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy and reproducing the head of JFK to investigate his assassination

Question 46

Paleoart

Answer 46

The art of reconstructing something without the complete information, like people have been doing with dinosaurs

Question 47

Excavation

Answer 47

Carefully retrieve objects from the ground. There are many types of excavation: brushing, digging,…

Question 48

Remote sensing

Answer 48

Detecting and monitoring the physical characteristics by measuring its reflected and emitted radiation at a distance (getting info without physical contact with the object). Satallites and radar are the main usage of remote sensing nowadays. Bats’ sonar is also remote sensing. In archeology, remote sensing is used by sending radio waves to the ground and recording the nanoseconds it takes for the waves to come back to discover stuff underground or create 3D maps. SONAR - Sound Navigation and Ranging

Question 49

Zooarcheology

Answer 49

The study of animal remains or fossils of extinct animals. You can learn how long it takes for hunting to cause extinction and how to prevent it in the future to learn from past mistakes

Question 50

Archaeobotany

Answer 50

The study of plant remains. Learning how plants went extinct and how to prevent it. Similar to Zooarcheology

Question 51

Carbon Dating

Answer 51

A method of determining the age of plant/animal using the carbon it used. Nitrogen + cosmic ray = C14, and with oxygen it becomes a radioactive form of CO2. the plant gets this CO2 through photosynthesis, and animals eat that plant, so both of them have radioactive CO2 inside. The C14 in the CO2 undergoes an extremely slow radioactive decay, so scientists can know when a plant/animal existed from determining how much energy a dead life form lost by radiocarbon. Willard Libby from the University of Chicago discovered this method in the 1940’s, and won a Nobel prize 20 years later.

Question 52

Dendrochronology

Answer 52

A dating technique for trees using an analysis of their rings. You measure the rings of the tree’s logs to date it. This is because many species of trees produce rings during annual growth seasons. The width of the ring for each year tends to vary in proportion to either the amount of available precipitation or the prevailing temperatures

Question 52

Pseudoarcheology

Answer 52

Interpreting acheological facts from outside the science community, like saying the pyramids were built by extraterrestrial beings because the stones are too large. There are always lack of scientific evidence in these claims, and they oppose what the science community thinks, this is more common in nationalists and religious movements

Question 53

Dragon

Answer 53

Can’t de-extinction because they didn’t exist in the first place.

In Game of Thrones, King Aegon III of Tygerian had his last dragon dead as a result of overhunting, disease, lost of habitat. At the beginning of the next generation of Tygerians, Halisi kept the 3 eggs the last dragon made, although they hadn’t broken in 3 years, she was patient and at the end all 3 of them were born, but 2 ended up dying.

Question 54

Steps to PMFR

Answer 54

1. Markers are placed to indicate the depth of tissue to be added to the skull
2. Adding strips of clay around the markers
3. Refining the artificial eyes
4. Shaping the lips
5. Smoothening facial contour and add small details

Question 55

Shanidar old man

Answer 55

• Neanderthal found in Iraq, lived 60kya
• Found by Dr. Ralph Solecki, 1957
• PMFR & Gatliff American Tissue Depth used for reconstruction