Determining hair color by looking at DNA

Maggie Koerth 9:28 am Wed Jan 5, 2011

A new DNA analysis technique can determine hair color—with greater than 90% accuracy for redheads and black-haired people. So, fellow redheads: From now on, be very careful to not leave DNA at your crime scenes. Or, barring that, only commit crimes in counties that can't afford expensive, new-fangled DNA profiling analysis. Or, you know, just dye it. (The point I'm trying to make: This stuff is interesting from a science perspective, but maybe not so useful for crime scene forensics.)

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