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Three Advances in Forensics

Imagine placing the entire population of Wyoming's capital city behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Studies estimate that roughly that number of people, or between one and five percent of the two million people in U.S. prisons, have been mistakenly convicted. One reason for these wrongful convictions is the fallibility of many of the methods currently used in forensic science.

Published: October 18, 2012

Three Advances in Forensics

Sniffing, sifting, and sensing new ways to solve—and prevent—crime.
- 10/18/2012
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Expert Q&A

Hany Farid: Expert Q&A

On July 1, 2008, Hany Farid answered selected questions about photo fakeries, the promise of digital means to detect manipulated images, and more.

Published: July 1, 2008

Hany Farid: Expert Q&A

Father of digital forensics and Dartmouth professor Hany Farid answers questions on photo fakeries and more.
- 07/01/2008
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Tollund Man

He has become the face of Iron Age Europe. But in 1950, when men cutting peat near the village of Tollund, Denmark, stumbled upon him, they thought he was a modern murder victim. The police, aware of similar ancient bodies, contacted the Silkeborg Museum, and various specialists—archeologists, forensic scientists, radiologists, paleobotanists, even dentists—later studied his body. Here, learn about their findings and get an intimate view of the 2,400-year-old man.

Published: February 7, 2006

Tollund Man

This 2,400-year-old corpse is the world's most famous bog body. Learn how scientists reconstructed his final hours.
- 02/07/2006
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Forensics on Trial

(Program not available for streaming.) There is a startling gap between the glamorous television world of "CSI" and the gritty reality of the forensic crime lab. With few established scientific standards, no central oversight, and poor regulation of examiners, forensics in the U.S. is in a state of crisis. In "Forensics on Trial," NOVA investigates how modern forensics, including the analysis of fingerprints, bite marks, ballistics, hair, and tool marks, can send innocent men and women to prison—and sometimes even to death row. Shockingly, of more than 250 inmates exonerated by DNA testing over the last decade, more than 50 percent of the wrongful convictions stemmed from invalid or improperly handled forensic science. With the help of vivid recreations of actual trials and cases, NOVA will investigate today's shaky state of crime science as well as cutting-edge solutions that could help investigators put the real criminals behind bars.

Published: October 17, 2012

Forensics on Trial

Virtual autopsies, 3-D fingerprints, and digital crime scenes are making crime-solving into a more precise science.
- 10/17/2012
- 00:30 Video
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Expert Q&A

Anthrax Investigation: Q&A

On July 6, 2009, Paul Keim answered selected viewer questions about the anthrax letter attacks and microbial forensics in general.

Published: July 6, 2009

Anthrax Investigation: Q&A

Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University answers questions about microbial forensics, global plagues, and more.
- 07/06/2009
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Damage to the Declaration

More than a million people visit the U.S. National Archives each year to see the Declaration of Independence. Some are startled by its worn appearance, so unlike the posters hanging in schools. But Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Kitty Nicholson know differently. These National Archives conservators have examined every smudge and crease of the original. Here, pore over the faded original yourself, compare it to a pristine copy called the Stone Engraving, and read the conservators' notes.

Published: February 15, 2005

Damage to the Declaration

Explore a high-resolution image of the original Declaration of Independence and compare it to a pristine copy.
- 02/15/2005
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Creating a Palimpsest

Twenty-two centuries after the Greek genius Archimedes wrote his most revealing mathematical work, and eight centuries after a Christian monk erased what may have been the last surviving copy, the lost treatise has turned up and is being deciphered in a Baltimore museum (see "Inside the Archimedes Palimpsest" at left). But what exactly is a palimpsest? Find out in this brief but revealing interactive.

Published: September 30, 2003

Creating a Palimpsest

See how medieval scribes made a palimpsest, a manuscript written on parchment that has another text written over it.
- 09/30/2003
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Slide Show

Mysterious Plane Crashes

Aircraft accidents are thankfully rare. Even rarer are those whose cause or causes experts have not been able to determine with certainty. In this slide show, follow a century's worth of mysterious plane crashes, from Orville Wright's ill-fated flight of September 1908 to the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990.

Published: January 30, 2001

Mysterious Plane Crashes

In this slide show, review a number of aircraft accidents whose definitive causes remain a matter of debate.
- 01/30/2001
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Stable Isotopes in Forensics

In October 2000, a pair of duck hunters in Utah stumbled into a murder mystery. As they walked along the south shore of the Great Salt Lake—just 100 feet from Interstate 80—they found buried in a shallow grave a plastic bag containing a white sock, an oversized t-shirt, a woven blue choker necklace, 12 bones, and a human skull. Missing was any sort of identification. Police gathered what clues they could from the remains of "Saltair Sally," named after a resort near where her remains were found, though there wasn't much to go on. The body was badly decomposed, dental records didn't reveal anything, and a widely circulated composite sketch and description of her personal effects yielded no valuable information. The case went cold.

Published: October 18, 2012

Stable Isotopes in Forensics

Investigators use elemental variations to unearth new leads.
- 10/18/2012
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Darwin's Predictions

Ahead of his time is putting it moderately for Charles Darwin. The father of evolution had conjectures that were only proved, or greatly substantiated, decades after his death in 1882, in some cases not until recently. Today, evidence that unequivocally supports his theory of evolution by natural selection, along with other surmises he had, comes from an array of scientific disciplines. Here, bone up on Darwin's most prophetic ideas.

Published: November 13, 2007

Darwin's Predictions

Over 150 years later, science continues to confirm most of Darwin's conjectures.
- 11/13/2007
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Becoming Human: Series Overview

Nothing is more fascinating to us than, well, us. Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA's comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives—putting together the pieces of our human past and transforming our understanding of our earliest ancestors.

Featuring interviews with world-renowned scientists, each hour unfolds with a CSI-like forensic investigation into the life and death of a specific hominid ancestor. The programs were shot "in the trenches" where discoveries were unearthed throughout Africa and Europe. Dry bones spring back to life with stunning computer-generated animation and prosthetics. Fossils not only give us clues to what early hominids looked like, but, with the aid of ingenious new lab techniques, how they lived and how we became the creative, thinking humans of today.

Published: August 31, 2011

Becoming Human: Series Overview

Unearthing our earliest ancestors
- 08/31/2011
- 09:31 Video
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Grave Analysis

Many of the burials found in the Puruchuco cemetery on the outskirts of Lima, Peru showed signs of having died extremely violent deaths, probably during the Siege of Lima by the Inca. Who were these ill-fated individuals? As a bioarcheologist, I have been examining the remains of many of these people. Here, learn what I was able to determine about one victim's sex, age, and other characteristics by analyzing that person's well-preserved skeleton.

Published: June 26, 2007

Grave Analysis

Explore an Inca burial with a bioarcheologist, and see how she gleans information about a long lost person and culture.
- 06/26/2007
- Multimedia