Bye-bye, birdman: John E duPont 1938-2010

John E duPont, the multimillionaire (heir to the DuPont chemical fortune), the trained ornithologist who discovered and officially named more than a dozen new (sub)species of birds, collector of stamps, birds and shells, founder of the Delaware Museum of Natural History, the paranoid schizophrenic who was jailed after murdering an Olympic wrestler in 1996, died […]

DNA Faking for Criminals and Murder Novelists

Master criminals and murder novelists, many of whom felt hemmed in by technical limitations, can feel relieved by the news of new DNA technology: “Authentication of forensic DNA samples,” Dan Frumkin, Adam Wasserstrom, Ariane Davidson and Arnon Grafit, Forensic Science International Genetics, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 95-103 (February 2010). (Thanks to Ed Yong for […]

Improbable Research