Hair Analysis used in Forensic Science

During a crime, at least two people interact. When they interact, both of them take something away and leave something behind. In some movies you may see specialists analyzing hair and fibers through a microscope. Well since humans lose about 100 hairs a day, hairs are a perfect thing to find and use at a crime scene. It is very common for hair from the owners pet tok transfer to the criminal and then to be left at the crime scene. There are also several different types of hairs that differencate between cat hairs, dog hairs, human hairs, ect. Some of these disctions may be what the outside looks like. Which can be classified into three groups:

Coronal:

or a Spinous:And Imbricate:

The importance of hair in forensic science was first reconized in The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence by Alfred Swaine Taylor and Thomas Stevenson. This has a chapter on the importance of hair in a crime scene/forensic science. This chapter has refrences of cases that hair was used in the solving of the crime, drawing of the hairs under magnafication, and parts of human hair which include: the cuticle, medulla and cortex. The Cuticle is the outside of the hair and is like a protection. The Medulla is the innermost part of the hair. The Cortex are the cells between the Cuticle and the Medulla.

Here are some picture of some hair analysis that we did in class and lab: