Hard Science or blind luck in development of new forensic techniques?

Don't know if it has changed, but blind luck played a major role in some of the most important forensic tools that we have.

Laser examination of fingerprints got a big shot in the arm when an examiner (from Toronto) and a copier machine technician were talking over a common back fence. Seems the new copier that used a laser was a bugger to clean. Fingerprints just glowed everywhere. Needless to say, that is what the examiner was looking for. He went on to become a major promoter, and expert, in the use of lasers for fingerprint examination.

The technique of "fuming" to develop fingerprints on all sorts of surfaces was a packaging fault of "Crazy Glue". The packages were being returned as the insides of them were covered in fingerprints. No one would buy a packaged item that was all "dirty" inside. Seems the fumes from the packaged glue had developed the fingerprints of the folk packaging the stuff. A whole new industry was created for fingerprint examination. Items to be examined were bagged (or just placed in an ordinary aquarium) and a piece of material soaked in the glue was allowed to fume in the enclosure. Of course, now the package has been considerably refined to do the job. And the concentrations have been increased to the point that almost anything (a car for example) can be "bagged" and every single print developed. One problem to this is that when the item is returned to the owner the prints are a real bugger to get off. Requires a solvent of sorts. And believe me, the prints are everywhere!

As we jokingly say "isn't science wonderful"

tw