in the clouds

In 2008 when the Ramseys were cleared as suspects in the murder of their daughter JonBenet, DNA processes were used to pinpoint the yet to be identified man that left his skin cells, biological and tissue behind at the crime scene. The reactions by many was that the forensic method used to isolate the skin cell DNA was too new to be relied upon. Bolstered by an in sundry list of contentions and challenges from professionals and the public alike who were taken back by advances in DNA technology, in reality, this has been around since the time the murder was committed back in 1996.

Like discovery and advances in DNA technology other science disciplines are exploding through shared data and technology. A natural progression will be how these advances will be applied to forensic investigation, perhaps already in play with evidence types or known circumstances associated with JonBenet's murder - -

A Deluge of Data Shapes a New Era in Computing

Published in the New York Times

by John Markoff

"In a speech given just a few weeks before he was lost at sea off the California coast in January 2007, Jim Gray, a database software pioneer and a Microsoft researcher, sketched out an argument that computing was fundamentally transforming the practice of science.

Dr. Gray called the shift a “fourth paradigm.” The first three paradigms were experimental, theoretical and, more recently, computational science. He explained this paradigm as an evolving era in which an “exaflood” of observational data was threatening to overwhelm scientists. The only way to cope with it, he argued, was a new generation of scientific computing tools to manage, visualize and analyze the data flood..."[...read more]