Science

There's been some excitement among criminal defense bloggers such as Mr. Greenfield, Mr. Katz, and the Dude over a fascinating Los Angeles Times article about some strange search results in some of the major DNA databases. State crime lab analyst Kathryn Troyer was running tests on Arizona's DNA database when she stumbled across two felons with remarkably similar genetic … [Read more...] about Something Fishy About DNA Fingerprinting ?

In an article about the legal defenses for a drug possession charge, Jon Katz mentions a case in which a suspect was caught with ten pills, all allegedly methadone. The state had a chemist test one of the pills to determine it was methadone, then the chemist testified that the other pills looked similar. This was enough to convict, and the decision quoted favorably an earlier … [Read more...] about A Sampling of Evidence

We had a 5.4 magnitude earthquake in Illinois this morning. It hit around 4:36, so I was asleep and missed the whole thing. Bummer. Quakes are really rare in these parts and it would have been fun. 5.4 isn't much of a quake, but it's huge for Illinois. It also attracts a lot of attention because of the way our seismic region is structured. We're sitting on top of solid … [Read more...] about Earthquake!

Bill Beckman at Illinois Review is concerned about human embryos destroyed during in-vitro fertilization: A January 2nd LifeSiteNews article covers findings following a UK Parliamentary question on IVF. Data from a government organization showed that over one million human embryonic children were killed in the UK in the past 14 years as 'waste' embryos from IVF processes. The … [Read more...] about Cell Worship

I'm fascinated by the conservative obession with evolution. On Illinois Review, Jill Stanek quotes with some approval this statement by Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee: If anybody wants to believe they are the descendants of a primate, they are certainly welcome to do it. I don't know how far they will march that back. But I believe all of us in this room are the unique … [Read more...] about Welcome to the Planet of the Apes