Comments on: Identifying the Valentine’s Day murder weapon http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/identifying-the-valentines-day-murder-weapon.html Science Blog from Freelance Science Writer David Bradley Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:53:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Rufeng Bai http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/identifying-the-valentines-day-murder-weapon.html/comment-page-1#comment-67928 Rufeng Bai Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:41:51 +0000 http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/identifying-the-valentines-day-murder-weapon.html#comment-67928 About the deduction of injury implements, many researchers have paid more attention to the micro-shape of wounds. However, micro-shape changes after several days after death. In contrast, metal particles in wounds were found in our daily examination by chance. We detected them in our preliminary experiment and thought they might provide another way to deduce the injury implement. However, the question still existed that the degree of accuracy was not ideal, because the quantity of particles was not so sufficient. Furthermore, the precision of EDX is lower than ICP-AES. So EDX could be only used to deduce the category of a metal injury implement. As such, a wound must be examined with ICP-AES. Our SEM/EDX and ICP-AES method is now gradually being accepted by the police as it can provide more stable evidence than other methods. it is essential to say that there is a long way to go to expand the technique more widely. We are selecting other implements to examine using this technique. We have found that blood clotting does not influence the result. All the best Rufeng Bai About the deduction of injury implements, many researchers have paid more attention to the micro-shape of wounds. However, micro-shape changes after several days after death. In contrast, metal particles in wounds were found in our daily examination by chance. We detected them in our preliminary experiment and thought they might provide another way to deduce the injury implement. However, the question still existed that the degree of accuracy was not ideal, because the quantity of particles was not so sufficient. Furthermore, the precision of EDX is lower than ICP-AES. So EDX could be only used to deduce the category of a metal injury implement. As such, a wound must be examined with ICP-AES. Our SEM/EDX and ICP-AES method is now gradually being accepted by the police as it can provide more stable evidence
than other methods. it is essential to say that there is a long way to go to expand the technique more widely.

We are selecting other implements to examine using this technique. We have found that blood
clotting does not influence the result.

All the best
Rufeng Bai

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