Science News Article | Reuters.com Scientists Get a Computerized Grip on Ear Prints

3/8/04 By Patricia Reaney (courtesy of Topix.net)
"LONDON (Reuters) - Criminals are used to trying to avoid leaving fingerprints at a crime scene. But now British scientists have developed a computerized system that allows them to identify ear prints just as easily." So this is not surprising but it will be difficult to clean all the ink off if you ever get arrested. After all, I'm sure nose prints would also help, and what about trying to catch people who copy their butts on photocopiers? Maybe we should keep butt prints, too? Maybe we should just clone criminals so that we can measure whatever we want on them. Seriously, though. There are already problems in the two ways to do fingerprints (roll and press). A problem with the early DNA tests was using fewer datapoints so the certainty of match was not as high. How do we deal with all this data? Is it practical to measure all points of an arrestee? hmm.