Fingerprints could be used to detect traces of drugs or explosives in one of the most significant improvements in the technology for years. Police now have the ability to analyse the traces of cannabis, cocaine and other drugs, or explosives, in a fingerprint itself. The new technique reveals, in extraordinary detail, the chemical compounds that make up the print and could also find medical uses, since tiny traces of chemicals at our fingertips could signal the presence of a disease or an illness.
This method can also be used directly on a fingerprint, right where it’s found, without the need to lift the print off and take it to a lab for analysis. Dr Demian Ifa, Prof Graham Cooks at Purdue University in West Lafayette, and colleagues report in the journal Science how they used a technique called desorption electrospray ionization, or DESI, which involves spraying a solvent onto a fingerprinted surface and then analysing the droplets that scatter off the print with a method called mass spectroscopy. “The classic example of a fingerprint is an ink imprint showing the unique swirls and loops used for identification, but fingerprints also leave behind a unique distribution of molecular compounds,” Prof Cooks said. “Some of the residues left behind are from naturally occurring compounds in the skin and some are from other surfaces or materials a person has touched.”
This technique can pick up small amounts of drugs like cocaine or THC, the active ingredient from marijuana, as well as compounds from explosives.
My Prediction: Fingerprint scanning at airports will become routine, of course to fight Al-Queda. But since your not doing anything wrong, what difference does it make, right?
And, don’t forget retinal & DNA scanning…and, of course, ye olde trusty anal probe.
uhm how do they distinguish contanimation of the site where the prints were found with what is really in a print?
#2 Doesn’t matter. You were there and therefore, guilty. Off to the gulag.
I call BS. It is well known that cash has traces of cocaine. So wouldn’t someone who handles cash test positive for cocaine with this test?
Don’t worry too much, #4 is correct. Plus, mass spectroscopy is a very complicated, expensive and rather cranky method, unless there is some weird breakthrough it wont become even remotely portable or user friendly any time soon.
-cant wait to see the rash of abuse, false positives and resultant chaos this will cause..
sounds perfect for blackmail/setups too..
no doubt one could easily just spray or dust a common used item
(like a steering wheel, etc) with
the preferred (or designed) substance that will set off the scanner and bingo, you have enough probable cause to make your patzi’s life a living hell..
(not that law needs probable cause
anymore to do anything, but you get the picture.)
B.S. or Junk Science, at best….
You can pick up residue of about anything out in the wild, and there is no way to say where it’s from….
Comparison with things like a test for having fired a gun, for example, is nonsense, because much larger (and less likely to contact other surfaces) are involved.
‘Course, that won’t keep some politician for demanding it.
Regards
You think I can use it to prevent myself from logging into my computer stoned.
All I do is read this wacky site and surf porn.
I saw a engineering model that had a booger check LED.
#8 – Wacky?? Man, there is some serious religion flogging here that is second to nun, er, none.
Most money has traces of drugs on it. Do you handle money? If you do they may decide that you are a junkie or a pusher.
This is like some of the olympic drug testing. It will most likely catch the guilty for some offences and many that aren’t.
tiny traces of chemicals at our fingertips could signal the presence of a disease or an illness.
Bullshit. Blood tests are more revealing and conclusive than something on someone’s fingertips.
Something to keep in mind, courts require that a measurable quantity of a substance be found before there can be a connection. Mere positive tests, such as for gunshot residue, do not rule out the use of many soaps or other similar chemicals that could also give a positive indication.
Here is a test for you.
What finger am I holding up ?
Hehe – the cranky man himself (dvorak) spelt “you’re” as “your”.
Hehe : )
There are as many holes in this type of test as most of the other drugs tests.
Too easy for a false positive in my opinion.