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Wow, ok, I love Wired magazine, I really do.  It’s the only magazine that I consistently read and enjoy.  And I have respect for their sciency know-how, at least I did until I read this article.  

Research Calls Forensic DNA Technique Into Question

Every forensic scientist worth their salt knows that you always try to get tissue from the same source to test and none of them will say that mtDNA can be used for conviction, or identification, or really anything.  You only resort to mtDNA when the sample is severely degraded (it’s resilient and abundant so even if half of it is destroyed there is still plenty left to quantify) or in missing persons cases because mtDNA is almost EXACTLY THE SAME AS YOUR MOTHERS. 

Really, did they bother to even ask someone who might have caught an episode of CSI before they wrote this (not that I have ever seen CSI but I have seen this mentioned on Law and Order a few hundred times.)  No one is going to jail over a mtDNA match alone.  And the variance between tissue samples has been know and calculated for several years, yet another reason why genomic DNA is the preferred source.  It doesn’t change throughout the body.

 I don’t know why this article made me so angry except for the fact that they are trying to pass off old information as new and undermine the credibility of forensic science.  What calmed me down though (besides the guy from Texas slipping in a backhanded complement I don't think they caught)  was  reading through the comments and realizing that, thankfully, I wasn’t the only one to think it was just a load of BS.

 The only noteworthy piece of information I can glean out of reading through several times is that, possibly, this geneticist (which I must point out is completely different than a forensic scientist) has found a new method of retrieving the mitochondrial code, which could be cool. 

Sorry for the rant, I get a little defensive when it comes to a subject in which I have a degree.