Hey guys, if you read my original post from a few days ago about a breakthrough in how to take fingerprints, you’ll remember that i found a site claiming to do the same thing (seemingly anyway). Well i contacted the researcher involved, and he was kind enough to answer the questions i had, clearing up everything.

Just a quick recap of the original story to start with. They have basically found out that a fingerprint corrodes metal, etching into it the fingerprint itself, and devised a way to image the fingerprint despite the fact that the original fingerprint residue had been completely removed. This is massively useful in cases where for example there might be a fingerprint on a used bullet casing, where the original fingerprint would have been destroyed by the heat of firing the bullet. Only problem was, doing some research for the post, i found other research groups in the UK that seemingly had already done this , raising some questions.

Well i got in contact with the researcher from the (new) study, Dr. John W. Bond, and he answered me promptly and concisely. Turns out, the other group had mainly been working on taking the fingerprint with the fingerprint residue still present, and in their latest paper, they also said they had been able to measure it despite having wiped it down with a tissue. In the case of Dr. Bond’s method however, they thoroughly cleaned their casing using hot soapy water, getting rid of any residue, and were still able to measure a fingerprint. In addition to that (as we predicted) it is also much cheaper then the other method. He did add though that as their results hinge completely on how much the casings (or any other metals) were corroded, they are less consistent then the method used by Swansea.

So, there you have it! Big thanks to Dr. Bond for taking the time to clarify everything, and lets hope that their predictions of many cold cases being reopened due to this new technique holds true.