SciBlogs

To reduce or not reduce – that is the blood alcohol question Anna Sandiford Jul 28

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Several posts have got involved in the blood alcohol debate (examples being Blood alcohol, Categories of drunk and Wobbling into the road after a night at the pub….). Should NZ reduce the blood alcohol limit for driving a motor vehicle from 80 mg alc/100 ml blood to 50? The UK still has 80 in blood as the legal limit and we in NZ take a lot of what we do in our justice system from theirs.

One thing that has not so far been mentioned is that the NZ breath alcohol limit for driving a motor vehicle is 400 ug alc/L breath. This is established using a blood:breath ratio in the region of 2100:1. In the UK, this ratio is 2300:1, which means that the legal breath limit is 350 ug/L breath (there are plenty of studies that deal with this issue such as Cobb, P.; Dabbs, M., 1985: Report on the performance of the Lion Intoximeter 3000 and the Camic Breath Analyser evidential breath alcohol measuring instruments during the period 16 April 1984 to 15 October 1984. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.   Jones, A., 1993: Disappearance rate of ethanol from the blood of human subjects: implications in forensic toxicology. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 38, 104-118, as well as various Home Office data.    The online version of Clarke’s Analysis of Drugs and Poisons will also be receiving an update from one of the world’s leading minds in this area but that will be next year so I can’t say too much more about it).

50 ug alc/L breath might not sound a lot but in a country like NZ that has a severe attitude problem when it comes to drink driving, it could make a difference.

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Wobbling into the road after a night at the pub…. Anna Sandiford Jul 26

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Once again, alcohol-related stories are all over the media (Drunk driver haunted by night of shame; Joyce to review drink-driving loophole; ‘Humiliated’ barrister to plead guilty to drink-driving; Car death: ‘Any other kid, you’d be in jail’).  All of these cases, and most of the alcohol-related cases that are reported in the media, contain stories about people who were drunk and were driving motor vehicles – a catastrophic state of affairs at the best of times.

However, thought should also occasionally be given to those cases where the drivers are not over the alcohol driving limit but where people still die because they’re drunk.  I have worked on many road traffic cases where drunk pedestrians strayed into the path of an oncoming vehicle, were hit and killed or seriously injured.  The trauma of the event will never leave the sober driver but in many of these cases the ‘victim’ was too drunk to know what literally hit them.

Recent research in Forensic Science International Supplement Series demonstrates what we have all known for some time – that pedestrians belong to the group of road users with the highest mortality rate.  Basically, drunk pedestrians are classed as amongst those road users most at risk.  Work completed by Slovenian scientists shows that alcohol-positive pedestrians who died in road traffic incidents between 1999 and 2006 (n = 125) were predominantly younger men, who had a higher level of risk of a road accident, greater incidence of injuries and a shorter period of survival following a road accident – 92% of them died in the six hours after a road traffic incident, usually of head trauma [source: Prijon & Ermenc, 2009. Influence of alcohol intoxication of pedestrians on injuries in fatal road accidents. Forensic Science International Supplement Series, 1, pp. 33–34].

In one case I clearly remember, the pedestrian was a woman who was so drunk she ended up in the road in front of an oncoming motor vehicle.  My job in that case was to calculate her blood alcohol concentration at the time of the incident.  The unfortunate driver had been charged with death by careless driving but he said the pedestrian had just fallen into the road in front of him.  His lawyer was sensible enough to ask an alcohol expert (me) how drunk the pedestrian had been at the time of the incident: considerably, was the answer.  Enough to have significantly impaired her ability to co-ordinate her limbs (see Categories of “drunk”) – she probably literally stepped into the road in front of the car.

It just goes to show that even if people are responsible enough not to drive themselves home, they’re still a potential hazard.  And then there are the non-traffic incidents where people are so drunk they fall into or off things – but that’s a different story.

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Taser fuss Anna Sandiford Jul 19

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NZ Police have recently issued a press release to assure the population that there is nothing wrong with the tasers they are using and that a few unsuccessful discharges are to be expected. In fact, the taser trial involved a 12.5% failure rate (2/16) compared with a 13.3% failure rate in the field (4/30) – comparable figures although perhaps the trial was not the largest n ever seen.

The NZ Police press release was in response to media articles about the inefficiency of tasers including the recent case where a police dog was fatally shot and two police officers were shot and wounded (Taser unsuccessfully discharged).

However, I don’t recall seeing any news items about a case where the use of a taser saved the life of the man the Police were attempting to detain (perhaps I’m wrong and it was headline news but I don’t remember seeing it). On 18 June this year, Waikato Police attended Te Kuiti’s main street just after midnight where ambulance staff had been trying to treat a man who was bleeding heavily and who was also known by the Police to have a history of mental illness. The injured man was subdued by Police with a taser and he was then transported in an ambulance to hospital. It wasn’t until after the subdued man was in the ambulance that everyone realised he had sustained a cut to his artery. Apparently, if the man had not been subdued and therefore treated relatively quickly, he would have bled to death.

Now that’s the sort of story that I think should be reported on the 6 o’clock news – let’s have something positive as well as the usual negative.

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SciCon 2010 – well worth it…. Anna Sandiford Jul 06

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I have just returned on a bumpy flight from Nelson following my stint at SciCon 2010, the the biennial conference of the New Zealand Association of Science Educators (NZASE). The theme of SciCon 2010 is ‘Journey to Discovery’ and there are plenty of interesting speakers and workshops (it runs until this Wednesday, 7 July).

Having never attended a scientific educators conference before, I had no idea what to expect and being the opening speaker at a conference means you have no way to gauge what the audience is expecting or what they like to hear.

Knowing that forensic science is taught in many intermediate schools these days, my keynote speech was about the CSI effect and how the spark of interest that has been developed in children around the world, including New Zealand, offers educators an unmissable opportunity to attract students into science.  It also gave me the opportunity to put to rest some of those myths that programs like CSI have created.

For example, it is not possible to determine year and location of manufacture of a shoe using a sole pattern deposited at a crime scene. Even if it were, we wouldn’t be able to do it in New Zealand because there is no national footwear sole pattern database, even though the States has had one since the 1930s and the UK has had one for over 20 years and probably considerably longer (I understand it’s a cost-related issue – a reasonable excuse, do you think?).

It was also a surprise to some that the information gathered by CSIs can equally be used to exclude someone from an investigation as it can to prove their guilt – the science tells a story based on fact. Investigations should be geared by what the information is saying, not focussing the information towards the suspect.

It’s important to remember as well that there are thousands of students the world over wanting to become forensic scientists but it’s highly competitive and there are less jobs than there were. Cuts in casework and evidence submission to laboratories is being driven by cuts in police budgets (that includes NZ); lab budgets are being reduced in an effort to reduce costs. Sometime, somewhere along the line, the justice system is going to fail someone. I just hope that mistakes or lack of analysis get picked up before it’s too late.

I also ran a workshop on Alcohol and Adolescents and how the knowledge I have as a professional Expert Witness specialising in alcohol cases can be used by educators to help adolescents deal with issues around alcohol consumption. It was extremely eye-opening for all concerned, including me, and I think we all learnt from it.  I hope some new collaborations will come of it all.

I found the whole experience very rewarding. Science education has come a long way since I was at school and there is now a whole range of exciting experiments that can be used to demonstrate key aspects of science inexpensively but very effectively.  I hope the people who heard me speak got something from my presentations – the feedback was certainly plentiful and all positive. Which is good, because I was shockingly bad at the pub quiz  – sorry….

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SciCon 2010 – well worth it Anna Sandiford Jul 05

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I have just returned on a bumpy flight from Nelson following my stint at SciCon 2010, the the biennial conference of the New Zealand Association of Science Educators (NZASE). The theme of SciCon 2010 is ‘Journey to Discovery’ and there are plenty of interesting speakers and workshops (it runs until this Wednesday, 7 July).

Having never attended a scientific educators conference before, I had no idea what to expect and being the opening speaker at a conference means you have no way to gauge what the audience is expecting or what they like to hear.

Knowing that forensic science is taught in many intermediate schools these days, my keynote speech was about the CSI effect and how the spark of interest that has been developed in children around the world, including New Zealand, offers educators an unmissable opportunity to attract students into science.  It also gave me the opportunity to put to rest some of those myths that programs like CSI have created.

For example, it is not possible to determine year and location of manufacture of a shoe using a sole pattern deposited at a crime scene. Even if it were, we wouldn’t be able to do it in New Zealand because there is no national footwear sole pattern database, even though the States has had one since the 1930s and the UK has had one for over 20 years and probably considerably longer (I understand it’s a cost-related issue – a reasonable excuse, do you think?).

It was also a surprise to some that the information gathered by CSIs can equally be used to exclude someone from an investigation as it can to prove their guilt – the science tells a story based on fact. Investigations should be geared by what the information is saying, not focussing the information towards the suspect.

It’s important to remember as well that there are thousands of students the world over wanting to become forensic scientists but it’s highly competitive and there are less jobs than there were. Cuts in casework and evidence submission to laboratories is being driven by cuts in police budgets (that includes NZ); lab budgets are being reduced in an effort to reduce costs. Sometime, somewhere along the line, the justice system is going to fail someone. I just hope that mistakes or lack of analysis get picked up before it’s too late.

I also ran a workshop on Alcohol and Adolescents and how the knowledge I have as a professional Expert Witness specialising in alcohol cases can be used by educators to help adolescents deal with issues around alcohol consumption. It was extremely eye-opening for all concerned, including me, and I think we all learnt from it.  I hope some new collaborations will come of it all.

I found the whole experience very rewarding. Science education has come a long way since I was at school and there is now a whole range of exciting experiments that can be used to demonstrate key aspects of science inexpensively but very effectively.  I hope the people who heard me speak got something from my presentations – the feedback was certainly plentiful and all positive. Which is good, because I was shockingly bad at the pub quiz  – sorry….

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Last Chance to See…book review Anna Sandiford Jun 25

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Douglas Adams is one of my favourite authors.  I didn’t know he was also one of English actor/writer/comedian Stephen Fry‘s best friends (and I also didn’t know that Mr Fry has been an avid Apple Mac techno-chap for over 20 years).

Douglas Adams (for those who may not somehow know) wrote the inordinately fabulous Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy in six parts (the most recent offering, And Another Thing…. being penned by Eoin Colfer using notes made by Douglas Adams before his untimely, sudden death in 2001 at the age of 49).

One of the other books Douglas Adams wrote was Last Chance To See, which was a non-fiction book about his travels with zoologist Mark Carwardine. From the Douglas Adams website is this description of Last Chance to See:

Some years ago Douglas Adams wrote The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a story about the world being unexpectedly demolished by hideous creatures from another planet. It was meant as a joke… Now, animal by animal, tree by tree, the world is being demolished around us [but] not by Vogons on other planets. Douglas decided it was time to think about the absurdities of life on Earth, and what we are doing to it. He teams up with zoologist and photographer Mark Carwardine, and together they set off around the world ….. in search of [some] of the rarest and most endangered animals on Earth.

The edition of Last Chance to See that I read back in the 1990s was published in 1990 and I understand from the Foreword in the Fry/Carwardine version that the original Adams/Carwardine version hasn’t been out of print since that first airing in the 1990s. That in itself gives you an idea of how interesting the book is, not only in terms of what it has to say but, possibly more importantly, in how it says it.

The premise of the first version of Last Chance to See was just that – a chance for these two people (a comedy science fiction writer and a zoologist) to roam the globe to try and find some of the world’s rarest creatures and to see how they were getting on and what efforts were being made to try to save them from extinction.  Amongst the creatures being sought was the New Zealand kakapo.  After 20 years, Mark Carwardine and Stephen Fry undertook the same challenge to see what was left of the little that had been present 20 years earlier.  These two chaps, who didn’t know each other very well at all, plunged off around the world together, but wouldn’t see the Yanghtze River dolphin or the northern white rhino because they are now both officially extinct in the wild (some northern white rhino survive in zoos, but the Yanghtze River dolphin’s had it).

Now I’m sure many people will have watched at least one episode of the TV series that went with the book.  It’s the one where the kakapo tries to copulate with Mark Carwardine’s head, much to the amusement of Stephen Fry and, indeed, most of New Zealand including the Prime Minister who then announced that Sirocco the Kakapo was New Zealand’s newest spokesbird.  Now the fruity kakapo has his own Facebook page and the videoclip is available on YouTube: Shagged by a rare parrot – Last Chance to See.

So to the point of this blog: the book review.  The copy I have was printed in 2009 and is a hardback.  I have to admit to having not finished it yet but I think the biggest surprise for me was that it was not written by Stephen Fry.  He wrote the Foreword and Mark Carwardine wrote the rest of it.  I was a bit worried by this because the first version was written by Douglas Adams so I kind of assumed that the second round would also be written by a writer.  That just goes to show how little I knew about Mark Carwardine because he is clearly well used to writing and he does it very well.

I don’t intend going through the entire book because it is well-publicised and a simple Google search or click on the links I’ve added here will give you an outline.  What I always want to know about books is whether they held the reader’s interest sufficiently well that when they checked the time, two hours had gone by when it only felt like twenty minutes.  This book is one of those.  Even trying to dip into it I get sucked in and half an hour’s gone by just skipping to read about how Stephen Fry broke his leg falling off a boat on the first day of filming.

Quite often, books that accompany a TV series are written to make money and they’re just boring recounts of what happened each day and what was on each episode.  Thankfully, this book is well away from that, largely because they make it ‘real’ somehow.  It’s all in the writing and the reason for writing – the passion comes through.

Part of the reason I haven’t finished this book is because a close family member came to stay and hogged it.  She had this to say about it:

This is a well-told account that mentions not only the important ecological information but also those earthy things such as bottom trouble that are not mentioned in many travel books.

It’s a factual book (as was the first version) but not in a dry, two-dimensional way.  Many non-fiction books can be very dry by providing only facts about an area without adding personal colour.  Even when people describe a situation they can often take the colour from it just by trying too hard to describe what they’re seeing and not saying what they’re actually experiencing at the base level.  Facts in Last Chance to See are giving in small enough chunks to be digestible in between narrative about the personalities, the latter completing the 3-dimensional impression.  For example, Stephen Fry says to Mark Carwardine “Here’s that six quid I owe you” as he holds out a (not really) sick squid.

Although the loss of species from the Earth’s surface for whatever reason (though a lot of them because of the direct effects of humans) is not a joking matter, as with any other stressful or difficult situation many people find that humour is the best way to deal with it.  Personally, a bit of humour also helps me to absorb the terrifying reality of the death of animals through no particular fault of their own.

Overall, this book is depressing in its reality.  The thing that I came away with (even though I haven’t finished it yet) is that the only way to save so many other animals is a drastic reduction in the human population.  As that is not going to happen through our choice I think we have to face the fact that many species will be lost just because there are too many people on the planet, regardless of how much we try to do to prevent any further non-human species losses.  It’s not over yet though and what is being done is crucial.

If you’re going to absorb messages about species loss from a book, receiving those messages in an interesting and English-humour way makes it easier to bear.

Book details:
Last Chance to See: in the footsteps of Douglas Adams
Mark Carwardine with foreword by Stephen Fry
320 pp. Text and colour photographs.
HarperCollins, 2009
ISBN: 978 000 729072 7

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Who planted the bomb? Ask Fido ‘technology’ Anna Sandiford Jun 16

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Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are what we might call home-made bombs.  In this age of terrorism, IEDS are more of a risk to a wider range of countries than used to be the case.  Given that terrorism is affecting more westernised countries than before, the perceived need to deal with and catch the perpetrators seems to have taken on a greater importance that it did back in the days when it was really only the UK and countries that people hadn’t really heard of that were affected.

Anyway, politics aside, “technology” is coming to the rescue again.  A recent paper in Forensic Science International by Curran et al describes how canine teams (dogs) have been able to sniff out the scents of people who had contact with bombs after the bombs had gone off (I have not provided a link to the paper because it is behind a login – full citations details below).

When bombs detonate, they are usually pretty destructive, because of course that is what they’re designed to do.  Bomb scene examination is a skilled area in itself and clearly a huge amount of information can be gathered from what looks to most of us like scenes of utter carnage and chaos.

Tavistock Square bus bombing, July 2005

This recent article reports that specially trained dogs (with assistance from their handlers) can identify individuals who have been in contact with IEDs using post-blast debris.  These people can then be tracked in the same way that we see dogs tracking people on various reality cop shows.

Basically, parts of the exploded devices can be recovered from a scene and dogs can identify the person who had contact with the bomb before it blew up – potentially linking a person(s) with the planting of a device.  Although this may sound like old news, it is only recent work that has shown that “human scent survives the intense mechanical and thermal effects associated with an explosion where a concentrated peroxide-based explosive has been employed and can be attained from post-blast items collected from the blast site.”

Apart from the obvious human safety and criminal justice aspects of this research, what caught my attention was the last line of the abstract: “Human scent specific canines have shown the ability to identify individuals who have been in contact with IEDs using post-blast debris with an average success from site response of 82.2% verifying that this technology has great potential in criminal, investigative, and military applications.”

The key word here for me is “technology”.  Having no emotional attachment is a definite bonus in forensic science but although I assume they are referring to the dogs as well as the scent method collection, even I think that dogs are more than just technology….

Ralphy, cadaver-dog-in-training

Curran A., Prada P. & Furton K. 2010. Canine human scent identifications with post-blast debris collected from improvised explosive devices. Forensic Science International, 199 (1-3), pp103-108

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Pollen from snot (not for reading at dinnertime…) Anna Sandiford Jun 11

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A big hand to TechNZ because their funding allowed Auckland-based Dr Anna Sandiford of Forensic Science & Research Ltd and Dr Mark Horrocks of Microfossil Research Ltd to work on a joint research project with some world-class forensic scientists and pathologists at Manlove Forensics in the UK.  The project was to develop a new method of collecting pollen samples from dead bodies.

The new sampling method is now taught by Dr Sandiford to UK crime scene examiners, crime scene managers, police officers and forensic pathologists either as part of structured environmental forensics training courses, on an as-needs basis to specific police forces and/or whilst crime scene examiners are actually at crime scenes (that’s how easy the sample collection is).  It’s hoped that the more police forces use it, the more other forces will want to use it, including New Zealand and Australia.  Because of Dr Sandiford’s and Dr Horrocks’ European and Australasian botanical/pollen knowledge, the cadaver samples can be sent to New Zealand for processing, interpretation and eventual presentation in Court regardless of the originating jurisdiction.

Part of the abstract for Dr Sandiford’s upcoming presentation at the Australia and New Zealand Forensic Science Society 20th international symposium states:

“Pollen has wide application in case work: to provide links between things, places and people; to provide information on circumstances through reconstruction of events; as an investigative approach to suggest provenances of samples of unknown origin.  The value of collecting samples from nasal passages for pollen analysis has been recognized for some time and has been useful in several cases.  However, the current method of sample collection is highly invasive. It also requires significant amounts of equipment to be taken to the mortuary and for the pollen specialist or an associate to set it up and supervise or be involved with sample collection.

To speed up sample collection we have developed a very simple new technique.  Samples can be collected by pathologists or even crime scene examiners (with a small amount of training).  This cuts time and cost and should increase the number of cases in which such samples are collected.  The technique also takes into account other trace material that is routinely collected at post mortems or crime scenes.”

The current method of sampling requires removal of the brain during the postmortem.  The method is time-consuming (an hour or so, not including the delay to allow the pollen expert to attend the crime scene and/or post mortem), labour intensive (requiring at least two people) and expensive.  The new method is far, far quicker (in the order of minutes) and cheaper and samples can now be taken at crime scenes, post mortems – anywhere where a dead body is found.

The new sampling kits are being used by UK police forces and demonstration kits have been circulated to pathologists for their use.  Once a few more sampling kits have been returned then the results will be published in the international scientific press.  Initial results are that the new method is not only quick, cheap and easy to use, the results are comparable with the original method.

It’s a fact of life that even for the most serious of crimes, monetary cost comes into play when deciding how to advance an investigation.  Any advancement that means money can be saved without compromising the scientific results surely has to be a good thing and Dr Sandiford is proud to be developing a method that does just that.

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Symbolic questions Anna Sandiford Jun 11

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I was watching Top Gear the other day and James May was driving the woman who was responsible for designing all of the British roadsigns back in the 1950s.  Practically all of the signs are still used today and, as a testament to how well they were designed, they haven’t dated.  The big thing about British road signs (apart from the ones showing place names) is that they don’t use words – very important when more and more drivers are coming in from Europe.  Anyway, the longevity of the signs got me thinking about how some symbols are still used today even though the item they represent has changed wildly since the symbol was first used.

The most obvious is the telephone. If you Google “telephone”, the image that turns up is something like this: 

Now I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a phone like that since the 1970s but when I asked a 4 year old to draw a picture of a phone, she drew a stylised version of the standard curly wire phone. If you ask a person to draw a phone box, chances are it’ll be box-shaped and red (apart from the Dr Who fans) – they were decommissioned in England in the 1980s.

Test tubes is another one. I haven’t seen a traditional glass cylindrical test tube since I left school. The ones I use now are entirely different and there are so many types from which to choose. So why does CSI still have the old tubes in old tube racks?

(Just as an aside, do schools still use Bunsen burners?  I was showing a visiting Chinese student how to do some pollen processing and when I took the Bunsen burner out of the cupboard, turned on the gas and lit it she was stunned that a naked flame was allowed inside. And she’d never heard of nor seen a Bunsen burner before.)

Drawing a television is another interesting image – children seem to draw TVs that look like those with a tube and bunny-ear antennae but there aren’t too many of those around any more.
Office ClipArt

A key is often drawn as if it fits a mortice lock, but I can’t think of anything we have that has a mortice lock on it.A rocket usually looks like something from Joe 90. A boat looks like something the Owl and the Pussycat would sail away in. Perhaps these things are drawn the way they are because they are so distinctive.

On a slightly different tack, why do the car wheels seemingly swap sides on the Slippery Road sign?

While I’m at it, I know people will know the answer to this, but why is this the symbol for radioactivity or nuclear?

Why does this mean biohazard?

Just some thoughts for a Friday afternoon….

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Momentarily alarmed… Anna Sandiford May 31

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Is it scary giving evidence in court?  Yes, when you notice a knife lying on a chair in the main foyer of the court.

I was in a south Auckland court today and to start with, the day didn’t seem anything unusual.  Whilst waiting around for the case to start, I glanced to my left and there, glinting in the fluorescent bulb light, was a knife.  It sat there, on the chair between me and a lady who was busy texting, seemingly oblivious to the knife on her right.  My vulnerability was suddenly starkly apparent and I casually glanced around to see if there was a police officer to whose attention I could bring this knife.  Nope. No police officers.  Was there any court security?  Nope, none of them either.  How about a plain clothes police officer or some sort of court official?  Nope, none of those either.

So what do you do?  It didn’t seem right to ask the lady if the knife was hers.  I was also suddenly aware that not all of the people who are milling around in a court foyer are necessarily very emotionally stable.  Certainly, there was at least one man rocking in his chair; on the other side of the foyer, two people were suggesting to each other in loud voices from close quarters that they would see each other in court (on opposite sides, I assumed); I was there on behalf of one party involved with an alleged assault matter.

So I did the only thing I could do – I went to the Fines Counter next door and advised them as calmly as possible that there was a knife lying about in the waiting room next door.  The hand of the counter clerk flew to their mouth in surprise and minor shock, followed by looking around to find someone to deal with it – the same problem I had: no-one.  That meant that the counter clerk had to go and retrieve it.  I bet that’s not part of the job description.

Although today’s minor excitement only involved an ordinary dinner knife, it was still capable of being used as a weapon and causing a fatal injury.  Many courts overseas have permanent court security staff with or without an x-ray machine and full body scanner and I’ve had my fair share of bag searches, but never in New Zealand.  I’ve always thought there was a case for having court security in every court, particularly after a man stabbed himself in the neck with a knife in Wellington District Court last year, but I’ve never been able to point to more than one violent occurrence (it’s a long story – but it’s in my book – due out next year!).  Now I know there is definitely a case for security staff, and possibly searching people as they enter the building.  And I’m back at the same court in a few days’ time….

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