Alabama STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holy Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred.

Holle Champions of servant leadership.

I felt the most want the other day at school.

I feel like we could have used forensic science to figure out whose it was.

I mean, you came and picked it up, but, you know, that would be really cool to figure it out.

And I know somebody who could show me how.

Come on, science, technology, engineering, math.

It's all coming out right now on Alabama's STEM Explorers .

Hi, and welcome back to Alabama's STEM Explorers.

I'm Anderson, and this is my new friend, Dr. Jason.

We're here at UAB Laboratory of Forensics.

And today, Mr. Jason or Dr. Jason is going to teach us some really cool stuff about forensics.

That's right.

So, Anderson, I hear you have kind of an interest in forensic science.

Is this right?

All right.

So I'm going to give you like three options.

And you tell me what most interest you about forensic science.

Because when I talk to kids about forensic science, you know, sometimes I'll say, Dr. Jason, I'm really interested in solving crimes.

Sometimes I'll say, Dr. Jason, I'm really interested in being at the crime scene.

And then sometimes theyll say, Dr. Jason, I'm really interested in being in the laboratory.

What about you?

Interest in those things?

What interests you the most?

Solving crimes at the crime scene or in the laboratory?

I think you'll feel really good to solve the crime.

I feel like that would be cool.

But I feel like the crime scene would also be kind of cool.

Although we kind of scary.

It sometimes could be.

But all the criminals are gone.

You're safe there.

Okay.

What about laboratory stuff?

Laboratories.

I feel like laboratories and like solving the crime could kind of go together.

Yes.

I was always there, like, really helping to solve the crime.

Yeah.

So I feel like laboratories kind of changed everything.

Yeah.

And I like laboratories because laboratories is all about the biology and chemistry there.

You know, a lot of times on television, we'll take those three things and smear them into one person.

But really, it's the police investigate the crime.

It's crime scene technicians who are collecting evidence of the lab or excuse me, collecting evidence at the scene.

And then that evidence comes to the laboratory.

And that's really where the forensic scientists take over.

And it's the chemists and biologists that open up the evidence and then do some type of analysis to it.

And then they have to explain to the police officers like, hey, Officer Anderson, this is what we found about that evidence you gave us.

And then you can put together the pieces and solve the crime.

All right.

So do you want to work through some evidence today?

Definitely.

All right.

Let's work through some evidence today.

What we're going to do is we're going to start in the forensic biology section of the laboratory.

So, Anderson, I want you to go ahead.

I have an envelope there.

It's labeled evidence.

So let's go ahead and open this up.

Now, don't wor We didn't take this evidence from any law enforcement agencies or something, but this does represent what a forensic scientist might find when they go into work in the morning and they're assigned that evidence.

Okay.

What does it look like?

Go and spread it out there.

What does that look like to you?

It kind of looks like a sweater.

I have, but good.

I noticed this red stain right here.

Yeah, it is a red stain.

Okay, so if you're a forensic biologist, okay.

When I say forensic biology, what do you think of, like, crime kind of people DNA?

Okay, good, good.

Yeah, because if you had to take a guess as to what that red stain was, and let's say that this is part of let's say that a dog has been kidnaped and we recovered this from the location.

We think maybe the dog got in a quick bite at the doggy napper.

All right.

And maybe there was some blood, like, what do you think that red stain is?

I definitely think it would be blood.

Yeah.

Yeah, you think?

Right.

And if we wanted to know who that blood came from, what type of analysis do you think we would do?

DNA.

Yeah.

DNA.

Okay.

We're not going to do DNA today because it takes a little bit of time and it takes some advanced instrumentation.

But really, before a forensic scientist even looks at the DNA, the first thing they have to do is to take that red stain and perform a quick test to see if it might be blood or not.

So that's what we're going to do today.

Okay.

The first thing I want you to do, Anderson, is go ahead and take a swab here.

All right.

Now I'm going to describe somebody, Anderson, you tell me what's wrong with this.

What if we cut out that blood stain and started dunking it and chemicals?

Why would that be a bad thing?

Do you have any ideas?

Because you're not doing it.

Like with a strategy.

You're doing it just spontaneously.

Yeah, it would be number one.

There's not that much thought into it.

And if we're going to try to see if it's blood or not, do you think we want to use the whole stain or do you think we want to just use a little part of it?

I think that we're going to want to use the whole stain.

Okay.

Now, that's a good guess because we definitely want to make sure this test works.

But remember, because you already said it.

What else do we have to do after we do the blood test?

We have to look at what are the three letters, DNA and DNA, right.

So we don't want to use all of the blood stain right now because we want to save it for DNA.

So we're just going to test a little portion of it.

All right.

This is what I want you to do.

I want you to go ahead.

And this is just water right here.

Put your swab over there and just put a couple drops of water on it.

We just want to moisten that swab.

Have you ever, like, a spilled spaghetti sauce on your shirt?

For sure.

Okay.

And what happens when you spill spaghetti sauce on you and you're trying to get a lot?

Do you just, like, rub your dry hand over it?

No.

I usually get water stain remover.

Good.

Yeah.

And you sort of get it up.

So that's what we're doing now.

We want to get a little bit of that red stain because we don't know if it's blood yet on the swab.

And here's a tip and there's that, as opposed to just sort of like Roman like that, I want you to sort of press and drag down on that stain until a little bit of that swab turns of red color.

Just make sure you have a little bit of that red.

Go ahead and feel free to yet apply some pressure to it.

That's probably good.

Look at your swab.

Hey.

Hey.

Okay, so that's good.

All right, now I want you to lay your swab just like this, okay?

But on the opposite side there, because this is going to catch all of our chemicals.

All right?

And we're going to do a color test.

All right.

Now I'm going to name some things that might be in blood.

And you tell me when I got something that's in blood.

And I.

Do you think there's a lot of like, bread in blood?

Probably not.

No, probably not.

That's not a good even a good example.

Okay.

What about something like, I don't know, hemoglobin?

Do you think there's any hemoglobin in blood?

I think so, yeah.

Hemoglobin carries oxygen.

And that's in this test is actually it's not just for blood, but we're actually testing for hemoglobin.

Hemoglobin is going to catalyze a reaction.

Okay.

We're going to start with something called TMB, tetra methyl benzene.

And that is not let me not move this.

That's that's this.

Right here.

What color is that liquid, Anderson?

It looks kind of yellowish to me, but it's r. Yeah.

You're good at this.

Okay.

It is clear.

It's not a color.

Okay, now, what's going to happen is in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, which we have right here, this TMB is going to turn a blue color.

Okay, so we need the TMB.

We need the hydrogen peroxide, and we need hemoglobin to catalyze the reaction.

So if this is blood, there's hemoglobin and we're going to see a blue color.

If it's just something like ketchup, then we're not going to see a blue color.

All right.

So let's go ahead and add the TMB.

Okay.

I'm going to add one drop.

Two drops.

Just keep sort of slowly dropping until you're sure you got some on that stain.

Yeah.

There you go.

Go ahead and add one more to.

Yeah, we don't.

We have plenty of chemicals.

Okay, that's good.

All right.

Next up, the hydrogen peroxide.

And this is the same hydrogen peroxide that you would get at the pharmacy.

Oh, what do you think?

It's turning blue and it's kind of bubbling.

Yeah.

And the bubbling there, it's a little probably a little peroxide sits in the blood that causes the bubbling.

But what forensic scientists will look for is that blue color.

So that means, hey, we got a good shot at this being blood.

So we're going to send it to the DNA lab and find out who it came from.

But the important thing is, is that this is what a forensic scientist would do, open up evidence and sort of do a little screening step to find out more information and then decide on how to further process it.

Is it possible that to like test for non human blood?

That's a very good question because do you think like dogs breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide maybe?

Okay.

Yeah.

And all animals sort of that have a certain.

Do you think dogs have blood in their body?

Maybe that's a better question.

Yeah, of course.

Okay.

So other animals will also have hemoglobin.

So this test isn't specific for blood, but when you go to DNA, you amplify only human DNA.

blood or not.

Okay.

But for now, we're going to pack this up and hey, Anderson, if I, like, touch an object with my hands, what type of material do you think I leave behind on an object?

I'll give you a hint.

It comes from my finger.

Fingerprint?

Yes.

The fingerprints.

You want to look at some fingerprints?

Yes.

Okay, let's switch this stuff out and let's look at some fingerprints as well.

We're back.

And we're about to do some really cool fingerprint science with this mug.

All right.

Okay.

So, Anderson, we already talked about how there are police doing the investigation.

There's crime scene technicians at the scene and there's forensic scientists in the lab.

If we're trying to get fingerprints off of this mug, who do you think would do that job?

The police, the doing the investigation, the crime scene technicians at the crime scene or the forensic scientists back in the lab?

And I'll give you a hint, there's more than one answer here.

I think that it could be any.

I feel like it could be any of them.

Yeah.

The people at the crime scene could be have to do it like immediately.

Right.

And catch them quicker.

Good.

Or they could send it to you guys.

Yeah, exactly right.

Because if this was a doorknob, they're not going to take a door off a frame and send it back to the lab.

But something little like a coffee cup that may be a forensic scientist at the lab that takes it out of the evidence bag and tries to find fingerprints on it.

Okay.

So we're going to try to find fingerprints on this coffee mug.

All right.

Now we have our fingerprint powder here, so I'm going to talk you through this.

Anderson, go ahead and open up your fingerprint powder and put it on the table.

And it's really important to wear gloves, right?

So we don't get our own fingerprints.

Exactly.

Like you don't want to be convicted of a crime he didn't commit as a forensic scientist.

Right.

So we want to keep that clean.

And also it just makes it more difficult.

All right.

Now, traditional fingerprinting is where you do a little bit of this and then you'll sort of a brush the dust on to the fingerprint and it will stick where ever the oils of that fingerprint are.

Okay.

But work on it.

I mean, how much fingerprinting, dusting have done in your entire career, Anderson?

Name one or a small one?

No, not a lot.

So what I think is easier is if we use this magnetic brush.

Okay, so check this out.

What I want you to do is just sort of slowly lower this into your powder and you're going to get sort of this magnetic glob there.

And if you pull up on it, it releases it.

But I just want you to sort of, like, get some magnetic powder on there.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah.

And now I want you to start to drag that across this mug.

I'll go and hold the mug for it and just sort of like, you don't have to touch it.

Just sort of do it.

Sort of like the powder is a dusty cloud.

Yeah.

And sort of just drag it.

Oh, whoa.

All right, now tell me when you see some fingerprints.

Oh, yeah, I'm definitely seeing some.

Yeah.

So you can see with that magnetic brush, it's pretty easy.

Okay, so we have some fingerprints on here.

And when you find a fingerprint, what do we want to know about that fingerprint?

We want to know who it's from.

Yeah, exactly.

So in order to know who it's from, we're going to have to do some type of comparison.

Okay.

I have a couple of suspects here, and the first thing I want you to do, Anderson, is we need to get that fingerprint off of the cup so we could see it a little bit more easily.

I mean, looking at the fingerprint, I do you see like sort of a pattern on that fingerprint of the ridges.

Yeah, I do.

Okay.

And I want you to tell me which pattern you think that looks most similar to.

I'm going to show you some pictures.

Okay.

The first print fingerprint pattern I'm going to show you this is called a loop.

Okay.

And if you'll notice, the ridges, the black lines, the raised areas of your fingerprints go sort of like straight across at the bottom.

They come up over the top and then a loop, those ridges come in and sort of turn around and go back.

All right.

Now, I want you to tell me what this one looks like.

Hey, I got another picture in here.

It's a swirl.

Yeand this is called a whorl where the ridges still go straight across at the bottom up and over at the top.

But it sort of has a circular pattern in the center.

There.

Now, I don't know if we can tell because we don't really have magnifier or something.

But just looking at the fingerprint on that cup, can you tell me whether it's a loop or a whorl?

It looks like a loop.

Okay.

I'm going to stop you right there because I agree with you.

You're correct.

Okay.

So in other words, if you know it's a loop for suspect number one, could this potentially be who that fingerprint came from if this was our suspect's fingerprint in other words, is this a loop or is this a whorl?

That's a whorl.

Yeah, exactly.

So since the pattern is different, that's something called a class characteristic.

And we can say, no way.

The pattern doesn't even match.

Okay, what about this one?

What pattern do you think this is?

We have some ridges going up and looping around and coming back.

That's a loop.

Yeah.

So could that fingerprinu just dusted be from this person?

Probably.

Yeah, it could be.

Okay, so we'll include that individual.

Okay, now we have another one here.

What do you think?

This one again, we have ridges here.

I'll sort of like let you draw a conclusion.

What do you think?

Is that a loop or a whorl?

It looks like a loop, but it's kind of more like an arch.

Yeah, okay.

It is definitely a loop as well.

And you mentioned arch because some individuals have fingerprints and we don't have them in their suspect here.

They just sort of go straight across, up and down.

Okay.

So we have two potential suspects that have two loops, but that fingerprint can't match both of those.

So we need to take a closer look.

How do you think we're going to take a closer look at that fingerprint?

Anderson, a magnifying glass.

A magnifying glass would be good.

But what would be even better if I took a picture of that fingerprint?

What type of device do you think would be really easy to look at?

Pictures with computers?

Yeah, exactly.

A computer.

Okay.

Now, I don't know much about using computers to look at fingerprintut Dr. Beth, she's really good at that stuff.

So I'm going to take you over to Dr. Bath, and she's going to show you a little bit about how computers can be used, not just to eliminate people who definitely don't match, but to figure out definitely who that fingerprint matches.

What a meter.

Yeah, let's do it.

I'm here with my good friend Dr. Beth.

And we just got fingerprints with Dr. Jason, and we're ready to scan and work, scan them into our ethics tracker, its automated fingerprint imaging system.

And it's the same system used by the FBI and your local police department to develop fingerprints and get them ready for comparison.

So ours is a crime scene print.

We're going to scan it with the flatbed scanner.

It's making a noise like a printer.

It's working.

All right.

And look at.

There's our print.

That is a spectacular print.

You did a very good job on that one.

So we will finish it up.

And now we are in a position where we can start marking it.

What what you're looking for in the print are the details.

You already talked about the tape with , didn't you, Jason?

What type of print did you have?

So we had a loop.

Yes, this is a loop.

And the way you know, it's a loop is the lines come in, they curve around and they go out the same side.

That's the first thing to call it a loop.

The second thing to call it a loop is this little triangle here that's called a delta.

So we have a re curve.

The lines come in and go out the same size.

We've got a delta, you've got a loop.

Those is just like in on land and everything.

It's exactly the same.

It's this little triangular part.

So what we're going to do is we're going to start looking for interesting details.

So you see this line here, it follows along and then all of a sudden it turns into two.

Well, that is an interesting detail.

That's minutia.

This is what makes your fingerprint different from everybody else's.

Nobody has the same minutia.

So we're going to look for more of this.

See, right here, it looks like that ridge comes to an end.

So we're going to mark that.

That is a ridge ending.

And you see, I draw the tail along the line.

Here's another ridge ending.

So we'll mark that.

So the way I market is I click and drag.

So do you think you could find some minutia?

Sure.

This looks like an inch right here.

That's the core that so.

Yes, Mark, that that's the core.

That's the very center of your loop.

So that's a good place to mark maybe right here.

That looks like another ridge ending.

Yep.

So.

So do people just go through and just go like all the way until they find you find as many as you can so I keep clicking.

Look at this is an interesting one.

There's a very remarkable detail right here.

Here you have a line comes down and it looks like it splits for a bifurcation and then here it splits again for another bifurcation.

I saw an interesting detail right here.

Can you see where this one line goes and it breaks into two.

So there's one delta.

But those two lines, they come together again.

And so that's called an enclosure where you have a line that splits and then comes together, closing off that area again, like a circle, kind of.

Yes, encircled.

That's really cool.

And I think you're ready to go and look at some reflectors right over reflective reflectors.

That's your next thing.

Okay, let's go.

She is about to show us some really cool stuff about fracture matching and trace evidence and the associations between people and places and objects.

And so one of the important uses of forensic science is it shows the associations.

So if we have a suspect and we look at the suspect and the crime scene, how can we associate them?

Francis Lowe Card was one of the very early scientists, forensic scientists, and he said that every contact leads a trace.

So you did this with the fingerprints.

If I come in and I pick up a cup and put the cup down and I leave, you can tell I was in the room because I left my fingerprints behind.

Right?

Right.

So sometimes there's a crime where things get broken.

You have or an accident, you have a hit and run automobile accident.

The the the headlight on the car gets broken and the car drives off.

Well, when they find the victim and they collect all the evidence from the crime scene, one of the things they might find are little pieces a reflector.

So they keep the little pieces of reflector and then when they find a suspect, they'll look at the car.

And if they see that there's a broken headlight, could those pieces of come from that broken headlight right.

One of your basic concepts is that when you apply enough force to an object to break it, it's always going to break in a unique way, right?

So if we can take those pieces and put them back together, we can definitively say they came from the same source.

So just like every snowflake is different, kind of like it's exactly like that.

Yes.

Every fracture is different.

Okay.

So what we have here is we have a piece of reflector that was found at the crime scene.

So we have this piece of reflector.

Okay.

Kind of looks like a honeycomb.

It looks like a honeycomb.

So that's important.

You notice things about it, you noticed it has a honeycomb pattern.

What else do you notice?

It's orange.

It's orange.

These are the class characteristics.

There's hundreds of orange reflectors with a honeycomb pattern.

That's true.

Yes.

But what we've got to do is find the pieces of reflector that match that.

So if you'd like to open this one, this is from the broken reflector from our first suspect.

So we take it out.

That's a lot of break.

Yes.

Okay, let's put that one here and let's.

Okay, so these are all of these the same color.

Well, let's check our third one.

Oh, this one's different.

That's very different, isn't it?

All right.

So we were talking about class character.

This is orange with a honeycomb pattern.

What do you see about your three pieces of potential evidence?

So two of these are orange wi honeycomb pattern, but one of these is red.

Okay, so we can say no way did this come from that reflector, right?

Right.

So we can put that one away.

Right away.

We've eliminated it.

So class characteristics, the physical characteristics can eliminate.

They can't say that it is a match.

So we've got to here and we can't eliminate either one, but we can't identify either one at this point.

So how about we take one of the let's you take one and try to put it together and I'll take one and try to put it together and we'll see if there's any pieces missing.

So alot of pieces.

Yeah.

I gave you the one with all the pieces.

I only have three.

Maybe that might have been not a good thing, huh?

I can figure it out.

We'll see.

Okay.

And one thing we can tell right away, looking at this piece, is that both of them are missing.

Both of them are missing a piece.

And if you had to make a guess, which would you guess?

This one looks like it's missing a lot bigger of a piece.

Yes.

So let's see if this will fit in there.

And we may have to turn this one.

Let's turn this one upside down, too, because it's fracture matching.

It's got to be a perfect match.

That's it's a little bit of a wonky thng.

We don't want a wonky fit.

We want a good fit.

That's true.

We finally finish and this looks amazing.

Oh, you did a good job of putting yours together.

So awesome job to thank you.

All right.

So the last fit bit to form our association is to see, does this piece from the crime scene fit into one of these reflectors that we got from our two suspects?

So would you like to do the honors?

Sure it does.

It looks like it's going to fit into this one.

Yes.

Way too big for this one.

Oh, okay.

It's a perfect fit.

It's a perfect fit.

And that's a fracture match.

Any even when you have two reflectors made by the same company, same make, same model, if you break them, they're going to break in a unique fashion.

Really?

Yes.

And so now we have some solid evidence tying this reflector and its owner to the scene of the crime.

We solve the crime.

And thanks to Dr. Beth and Dr. Jason, I learned a ton about forensics.

And it's not just like what you see on TV.

It's real life and things that people are doing every day.

Thank you very much for letting me show you this.

I had a very good time, an amazing time, too.

And we'll see you next time on Alabama STEM Explorers.

Thanks for watching.

Alabama STEM Explorers, if you missed anything or you want to watch something again, you can check out our website at Alabama STEM Explorers dot org.

Maybe you have a question we could answer here on the show and you might grab a cool T-shirt.

Feel free to send us a video question or an email on our website.

Alabama STEM Explorers dot org.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll be back next week.

Alabama STEM Explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Holle Family Foundation, established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holle and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holle.

Champions of Servant Leadership.