BBC It's well known that
identical twins are not totally identical - they can, usually, be told
apart, after all. But up to now it has been almost impossible to
distinguish their DNA. It's claimed that a new test can do it quickly
and affordably, however - and this could help police solve a number of
crimes.
At the end of 2012, six women were raped in Marseille, in the
south of France. Evidence, including DNA, led police to not one, but
two suspects - identical twins Elwin and Yohan. Their surname was not
revealed. When asked to identify the attacker, victims recognised the
twins but couldn't say which one had assaulted them.
Police are struggling to work out which one to prosecute.
They have been holding the brothers in custody since February - each
twin says he didn't carry out the attacks, but neither is blaming the
other.
When the twins were arrested, media reports said tests to
determine who to charge with the crimes would be prohibitively
expensive, but that looks set to change. Scientists specialising in
genomic research at the Eurofins laboratory in Ebersberg, Germany, say
they can now help in cases like this.
"The human genome consists of a
three-billion-letter code," says Georg Gradl, their next-generation
sequencing expert. "If the body is growing, or an embryo is developing,
then all the three billion letters have to be copied.
"During this copying process in the body there are 'typos' happening," says Gradl, referring to slight mutations.
In standard DNA tests only a tiny fraction of the code is
analysed - enough to differentiate between two average people, but not
identical twins.
Gradl and his team took samples from a pair of male twins and
looked at the entire three-billion-letter sequence, and they found a
few dozen differences in their DNA.
The scientists also tested the son of one of the men, and
found he had inherited five of the mutations from his father. Having
analysed the results, they are confident that they can now tell any twin
from another, and from their children.
[...]
Further proof that DNA evidence is NOT foolproof.
ReplyDeleteThere are problems with DNA evidence but this article is not proof of anything. IF at all, it proves the opposite.
ReplyDeleteThis is further proof DNA evidence does not meet the halachic threshold for proof.
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