Leave it to Japanese engineers. They've come up with a better way to make buildings smaller without the usual mess created by conventional demolition means.
Fingerprint errors: Fingerprint "science" is sometimes mistakenCourtesy blvesboy
"The CSI Effect," is a reference to the popular television show CSI -- Crime Scene Investigation and its spin-offs.
In reality, our forensic science system, upon which criminal and civil litigation depends, has been found to be far from meeting scientific standards.
A National Research Council report, "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward," stated:
"The forensic science system in the United States has serious problems that can only be addressed by a national commitment to overhaul the current structure that supports the forensic science community,"
The report urges Congress to authorize and fund a new federal entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, or NIFS, to oversee how forensic science is practiced in the United States.
The report was welcomed by lawyers for the Innocence Project, which has employed DNA evidence to help free 232 wrongly convicted defendants.
For example, it mentions the case of attorney Brandon Mayfield who in 2004 was erroneously linked by digital fingerprint images to train bombing in Madrid that year. Mayfield was arrested and subsequently released when the FBI acknowledged that it had made a mistake.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said "many forensic disciplines lack the standards necessary to ensure their scientific reliability in court (and) that forensic laboratories and their experts do not have uniform, mandatory accreditation policies."
Sources:
Forensic Science System In U.S. Needs Overhaul, Information Week
Crime labs are seriously deficient, report says MSNBC
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