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Paula Bronstein / Getty Images file
A new test can determine a person's age to within nine years from a drop of blood.
Crime scene investigators with little more to go on than a drop of blood have a new test that can help them determine the age of the person who was bleeding, according to a study in today's issue of Current Biology.
The test will work even on dried bloodstains -– perhaps even those revealed by a heat-vision camera. This could help detectives reopen cases that went cold years ago. And it's only a matter of time before screenwriters start working the technology into the plotlines for "Law and Order" or "C.S.I."
The technique, developed by scientists at Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands, is based on the fact that certain DNA molecules in some blood cells decrease with age, TG Daily reports:
"The molecules used are residues of the immune system known as sjTREC molecules. These special DNA molecules are released in blood cells as a result of the adaptations that have to be made by newly formed specific immune cells -- T cells -- to recognize bacteria, viruses, parasites or possibly cancer cells. Their number decreases with age."
The age test is accurate to within nine years. That should be sufficient to place unknown people –- criminals or missing persons, for example -– into generational categories spanning about 20 years.
Study co-author Manfred Kayser, a professor of forensic molecular biology, said in a news release that this is a harbinger for what's to come, as researchers uncover new methods designed to reconstruct the appearance of unknown persons from biological samples at crime scenes.
One test, for example, can determine eye color from DNA and has already been put to forensic use.
"Conventional DNA profiling applied in forensics can only identify persons already known to the investigating bodies, because the approach is completely comparative," he said. In cases where the DNA at the scene doesn't match any known suspect tested, "it is expected that appearance information estimated from evidence material will help in finding unknown persons."
More about the forensic frontier:
- New camera 'sees' invisible blood stains
- Cat fur puts criminals behind bars
- Crime labs cut to the bone
- Readers, pick your poison
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
A drop of blood - it tells your sex, eye color, and now your age +- 9 years.
That's great! No murder should remained unsolved. It's the least we as a society can do for the millions of nameless victims.
Now every on-line dating site will want a drop of blood to confirm age, or maybe they will try to match you based on genetic markers. Maybe we can call it "Blood Bond" or Blood Bound"?
Any thoughts?
I have a better way to determine age. Ask someone. Sheesh.
Ask a dead person?
" Sheesh."
Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to ask someone who isn't around or isn't capable of answering the question. A criminal who leaves a drop of blood will not be there to answer how old he/she is and a dead person obviously can't answer. In the future, you may want to actually read the article before commenting. It keeps you from looking like an idiot.
Well, obviously the monkey wrench that could be thrown into this new forensic technique is if the researchers also find a way to keep T cells at youthful levels in older people as a result of their research. Perhaps it would help people live longer if those cells can keep recognising those bacteria, viruses, parasites, et cetera.
That's a monkey wrench I'd be willing to accept. A little regression on forensics for a healthier senior-hood? Sure.
Unless people is unconcious or people has no id.; or, people can not talk and no way has any communication to get the age information.
It is just rare that age information has problem to get.
Dead people don't usually have much to say !!
bille-sue where is your banjo player or are you pulling his ear making him squeal like a pig
Within nine years.
So was the victim in elementary school or high school?
Probably a silly question since I'm no rocket scientist...but does anyone know if this would work on dogs? I know people who would love to know exactly how old their rescue dogs are.