So, one of my favorite book series is the trilogy written by Holly Jackson, ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’. If you don’t know about it , let me spill the beans– a teen solves an old murder which happened in her town as a school project! If you’ve ever read a book, article or watched a show about criminal cases where the quick witted detective identifies the offender by finding evidence such as fingerprints, dead skin or hair — have you wondered how they use this information? We all know how each and everyone’s fingerprint is unique to their own, but what about the dead skin or hair. Do they have a distinct print too? Well… Yes!
Our body is made up of cells, magnifying deeper into the structure of cells we can see the mitochondria, the membrane, the golgi, the lysosomes, the endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, and, THE NUCLEUS.
The Nucleus plays an important role in the illuminating crossroads that we find ourselves intertwined in the cosmic journey to the world inportraitable by our unfiltered eyes — you get what I mean, don’t you? Our exceptional nucleus not only has the stressful job role of being the headquarters of the cell, contains DNA too.
You must have heard about DNA (we did talk about it briefly in my earlier blog). It is the genetic code by which we organisms are programmed. The deoxyribonucleic Acid contains instructions related to growth, development, functioning, and much more. One of the most fascinating features of DNA is that it is unique to each individual (except identical twins… maybe I should research that too).
This is the property of DNA, which allows us to research key information about an individual, even in criminal cases. The DNA is a constant in the body — it is present throughout, though its functioning could be different. For example, the genes present in the DNA in the skin cells are responsible for creating keratin, which is not there in the muscle ones.
What the CIA movies don’t show is the process of identifying the DNA of a suspect. DNA profiling or DNA fingerprinting is done to match the DNA of the suspect to the evidence left at a crime scene. I learned a process called Electrophoresis in my bio class this week. It is a lengthy process, but in short a literal piece of gel is used to display the genetic information. Oooooooh! Sounds like a cool topic, too!
I found an interesting exception: if a person has a bone marrow transplant, the recipient’s DNA could change to the donor's!!! Well, the genes of the entire body won’t change, but the blood of the recipient could try to change to the donors. So when testing, the recipient might show the donor’s blood DNA in them.
During the unfortunate event of the 9/11 attack, DNA profiling was heavily used to identify the victims of the terrible tragedy. DNA samples were taken from the clothes, wallets, and jewelry of the remains to fingerprint this data.
The use of DNA is crucial to uncover mysteries, whether it is a fictional book like the Good Girl’s Guide to murder or a real-world investigation. This programming code is one of the most highly detailed piece of work done by nature themselves — something we still haven’t understood ourselves.
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