The science has been applied to law enforcement cases to determine how long a body has been decomposing or if the person was poisoned. And researchers are investigating if forensic botany can help locate a body in the woods faster by looking for differentiation in treetops. The researchers suggest nutrients seeping into the soil from a decomposing body would be apparent in the growth of the surrounding vegetation.
Hardy said any scientist acting as an expert witness - for the prosecution or defense - would have to arrive at the same conclusion upon examining the same evidence. Learn how your comment data is processed. If you'd like to help support this blog, please feel free to leave me a tip. Or click on an ad. I must say that I was a bit surprised by what I found out.
So, apparently, there is a burgeoning interest in forensic botany. Botanical Witnesses For The Prosecution How was plant-based evidence used to help solve the cases mentioned at the beginning of this post? After exploring many of these links, I found the following especially interesting and informative to me, at least : Crime Scene Botanicals An excerpt from Plant Science Bulletin , Vol.
References 1. Full Text 2. PDF 3. Full Text — PDF 4. PDF 5. PDF 6. Do Plants Have an Immune System? How Plants Tell Time. What if the victim is indoors Another study by Nguyen and Weber asked Can pollen match shoes to a previously visited indoor location? Nguyen and Weber use a factor that might not apply to secluded woodland. To test it Nguyen and Weber tested a flat apartment over several visits in different seasons.
They then tested the shoes after visits to see what stuck. A few of the samples held less than grains of pollen. Ironically, if you made a quick getaway from the scene, for example, in a car — then you helped preserve the pollen on your soles.
More brazen criminals who were happy to walk from the flat could pick up more outdoor pollen on their soles. The longest escape routes were 1. The authors show that ornamental pollen alone is not likely to be enough to prove that a person visited a space.
Bock, Jane H. Chadwick, Jonathan. The Economist. Graham, Dr Shirley. New Scientist. Yong, Ed. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sign me up for the newsletter! Don't worry will send you cool content only a few times a month! Skip to content. By Katie Bean Solving crimes is an intricate and befuddling process, where often the most minute details can provide ground-breaking evidence to bring justice.
Avis-Riordan Furthermore, plants can be used as an indicator for forensic botanists at a crime scene, revealing whether a person has been buried in a certain area. Inverse An example of a court case that forensic botany has been crucial in was the Cher Elder case.
Bock and Norris , Forensic botany is one intrinsic part of a whole myriad of fields within the discipline of forensics; entomology, pathology and palynology can all provide such hardcore evidence in legal cases. Bibliography ATA Scientific.
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