[HN Gopher] Presence and collection of DNA from air and air cond...
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Presence and collection of DNA from air and air conditioner units
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 49 points
Date : 2024-04-19 13:53 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com)
| surfingdino wrote:
| This is clever, if used correctly. I would help prove that
| someone was in a building, but would not necessarily help proving
| that someone was in the building on a particular day.
| rco8786 wrote:
| > in the building on a particular day
|
| This is a general limitation of DNA collection/analysis I would
| think? If you find someone's DNA somewhere, it's evidence that
| they were maybe there at some point in the past, but not at a
| specific time.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I wonder how strong that evidence is.
|
| For example: My DNA is probably on my coworkers clothing.
| Which means it is in their homes, even though I've never been
| there.
| surfingdino wrote:
| Interesting, I did not think of that.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Maybe I've let 'GATTACA' influence my thoughts too much but
| it seems like all it proves is that someone was in the
| building that possessed a sample of a particular person's
| DNA.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's not paranoia. As a sibling already pointed, we carry
| plenty of samples of other people's DNA around all the
| time.
|
| I wonder how many snakes one would find by average in an
| office.
| sholladay wrote:
| Even that is a troubling assumption.
|
| Our DNA ends up in weird places. For example, someone's DNA
| is probably on this plastic bag at the bottom of the ocean...
|
| https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/plastic-
| ba...
| rco8786 wrote:
| For sure. I used the word evidence rather than proof!
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Not true. I take a used Starbucks cup and leave it in a
| building. Now the DNA of the person who used it is in the
| building. The person may never even have been in that city or
| country.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Gives all the baristas a good alibi :-)
| gist wrote:
| Oh that is not going to stop law enforcement (who as a
| general rule doesn't have to be truthful). They can say they
| have evidence that you were there and on the spot (if you
| decide to talk to them) they can get you for lying or asking
| when and why you were at the location in question (and the
| reasons). Plenty can be done with this even on a
| hypothetical. I think this is (in the hands of the right
| interrogator super helpful. It's not like someone who commits
| a crime is going to be up on the latest forensic tests and it
| does sound possible.
| sebstefan wrote:
| The article doesn't seem to be going that way
|
| After a year of using an office, they still can't detect one
| guy but still detect the previous owner just fine
|
| If you can only detect somebody after multiple months (up to
| multiple years for bad shedders) of residency, I'd imagine they
| would leave way easier clues than DNA in an AC unit
| shkkmo wrote:
| Is it possible to use to narrow down warrants for DNA
| samples? Say the police have a sample from a perpetrator and
| can prove that sample matches samples from a builing AC. This
| could be part of the evidence used to obtai warrants for the
| DNA of some or all current/former inhabitants of the
| building, especially when pairdled with unopposed expert
| testimony about the reliability of the methodology.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I would think (and surely hope) that would fail the
| probable cause test if attempted to be used for "all
| current/former inhabitants".
|
| https://nij.ojp.gov/nij-hosted-online-training-
| courses/dna-p...
| squigz wrote:
| Well that's a rather horrifying thought...
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Also makes it super easy to frame people: everyone is
| constantly shedding evidence, so just slurp some up and spit it
| back out somewhere you would like to "prove" them to have been.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Easy to do already with people's tobacco spit cup, or even
| regular drink cup residue, and such.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I would be interested to know what effect talking has on the
| amounts of trace dna left in air.
| financetechbro wrote:
| Seems like something that would exist in the universe of Gattaca
| sebstefan wrote:
| It exists in the universe of Gattaca, that's why you see him
| exfoliating every morning in the shower
|
| To become less of a "good shedder"
|
| >Offices 2-4 were all known to be occupied by the same owners
| for many years (see Supporting Information 1). The owners were
| detected as the main contributor in background samples and in
| most instances sufficient DNA accumulated to identify these
| individuals after 4 weeks of occupation. In contrast, office 1
| was occupied by the current owner for only 1 year, and this
| owner (a known poor to intermediate shedder) was not detected
| at either time frame. Notably, there was a prominent male
| profile (further discussed in Section 10) that was detected in
| most background samples, but not at any other time point after
| cleaning. It is possible that this male profile is from the
| previous owner of the office who had a much longer duration of
| occupation and perhaps was a better shedder
| fishpen0 wrote:
| The dystopian future where diseases like psoriasis get you
| fingered for every crime within a mile radius of your home or
| office
| _Microft wrote:
| There are attempts to do something similar outdoors to get an
| idea which animals are in a certain area.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/dna-pulled-thin-air-...
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| > This study showed that human DNA can be collected from air and
| on surfaces that move air, such as air conditioner units, and can
| identify the usual users of the space as well as frequent
| visitors. DNA accumulated within a fairly short period of time
| with owners being identified after only 4 weeks of use of the
| tested space.
|
| So this doesn't seem like it would be adequate to identify
| criminals who visit a space one time. But I can think of various
| ways in which this collection might be abused - from selling
| information to data brokers for advertising or surveillance of
| regular visitors.
| Zenzero wrote:
| It also appears highly dependent on natural shedding of
| corneocytes. That would likely advantage a hygienic criminal
| who routinely exfoliates and lotions.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >Pre-operative shower using chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG)
|
| https://uihc.org/educational-resources/pre-operative-
| shower-...
| Zenzero wrote:
| Shockingly those are not great instructions. The contact
| time is critical and it isn't really mentioned in the way
| it should be.
| dv_dt wrote:
| If it can be used for rapid detection of viral airborne diseases
| it can be pretty useful for Covid or bird flu etc.
| heyoni wrote:
| They do something similar by sequencing the sewers for viral
| dna: https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/whats-
| new/covid-19-wastewater-t...
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| DNA is one of the few things that are relatively untarnished in
| the field of forensics which is otherwise a massive shit-show
| full of pseudo-science.
|
| I am worried that this sort of work will lead to even DNA being
| used in a hand-wavy manner to implicate people you don't like.
|
| https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/nathan-robinson-forens...
| giantg2 wrote:
| I believe the FBI has somewhat recently increased the number of
| loki needed for a match in order to claim integrity. It's
| possible there could have been collisions under the old
| standard. Most of the time it's not the forensics, but the way
| it's interpreted and how much weight the interpretation holds.
| I believe this applies to the DNA just to a lessor degree as
| other disciplines.
| heyoni wrote:
| loci!
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