FingerprintCourtesy leeechy (jkjond)Criminals need no longer waste time wiping down or washing the cartridge cases of the bullets they intend on using in a crime to get rid of their fingerprints ahead of time, you will still be caught! Researchers at the University of Leicester and the Northamptonshire police have teamed up to develop a technique to see fingerprints even if a metal surface has been wiped down. When people hold metal objects, the natural residues on their hands, like sweat, corrode metal surfaces. Their technique is particularly useful with cartridge casings, because the heat from shooting the weapon helps to imprint the fingerprints on the metal. Basically, you dust the metal of interest with a fine layer of conducting powder, and then apply an electrical charge to it. This causes the conducting powder to be attracted to the areas where the metal is corroded from fingerprints. Would be criminals would need to use abrasive cleaning techniques to remove the layer of corroded metallic surface to destroy their prints. Now don’t you go getting any ideas!
"Researchers at the University of Leicester and the Northamptonshire police"
But, but, but... surely firearms are [almost] totally banned in the UK! How could there possibly be a need for such technology? Could it be that criminals are not obeying the law? Never!
Hey... was that a sly argument for gun rights slipped into an innocent ol' post on forensic science? I'm not sure that's totally relevant. (But then a lot of what I do here is far from totally relevant, so whatev.)
Anyways, I'm not sure it matters who developed the technique—it could have been a band of quaker scientists, and the implication of the research wouldn't necessarily be that they were making an effort to halt intra-quaker gun violence. That's the nice thing about science: assuming that whoever did the research doesn't want it kept secret, the results are something the whole world might use (like police forces outside of Northamptonshire).
Now only career criminals who know how to use golves are safe to illegally use firearms, oh joy, and whatever happened to policing your brass?
the finger print is a natrul and nobody in the world has the same
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