Hair 1
A central core that runs through the hair.
What is the medulla?
Can a strand of hair alone (without the follicle) solve a crime?
No
What is most likely the result of hair bleaching
What is a yellowish tint?
There are multiple ways to collect hair is the preferred method?
What are or tweezers?
The non-destructive technique of using oblique, low-angle illumination to reveal surface details of hair scales or fibers without altering the evidence.
What is side-lighting
The patterned surface of the hair shaft - looks like scales.
What is the cuticle?
Why can hair with a follicle solve a crime?
It contains DNA. Which can be matched.
Most humans tend to have a medullary index of what?
Less than 0.3
The type of paper fold container used by crime scene investigators to safely hold hair evidence before placing it into a secondary envelope.
What is a druggist fold (or paper bindle)?
To minimize cross-contamination, forensic examiners must change this piece of personal protective equipment between collecting each separate hair sample.
What are gloves?
How can human hair be classified as either class or individual evidence?
It can either have a root attached or not.
A medula that looks like a dotted line.
What is interrupted medulla?
Secondary packaging that should never be used to store hair evidence, as static electricity can cause the hair to cling or fly away when opened.
What are plastic bags (or plastic containers)?
The forensic term for hair evidence transferred directly from a victim's head to a suspect's coat during a crime.
What is primary transfer?
List the three main parts of the hair from the outside to the inside.
Cuticle, cortex, medulla
Without the root or follicle attached, a hair shaft alone is considered this type of evidence because it cannot definitively identify a single individual.
What is class evidence?
What are two differences between animal hair and human hair?
Animals have a larger medulla, animals have drastic color changes, etc.
The specialized laboratory instrument that allows a forensic examiner to view a suspect’s hair and a crime scene hair side-by-side in a single field of view.
What is a comparison microscope?
The forensic term for hair that transfers from a victim to a rug, and then subsequently transfers from the rug to a suspect's shoe.
What is secondary transfer?
What kind of DNA can be found on the hair shaft?
What is mDNA?
Intermittent or interrupted medulla is a regular pattern, whereas this type of medulla has segments of irregular size/length and has very thin sections.
What is fragmented?
The primary structural protein that makes up human hair, fingernails, and animal horn tissue.
What is keratin?
The pattern classification of a medulla that is completely absent or breaks up irregularly into uneven, inconsistent fragments.
What is a fragmented (or absent) medulla?