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I wonder about this all the time.

Sometimes I comb my hair, or bite my fingernails. What if part of it fell on the floor and some random person steps on it. Stuck on the bottom of their shoe. A bunch of coincidental stuff comes up and my DNA is tested against a fingernail/hair under victim's shoe... match. I'm doomed.

Indeed, I fear the mentality that DNA-match = Guilty.

How many people have been sent to jail/put to death based on false DNA results or even accurate but not via the crime they're accused of.



> Sometimes I comb my hair, or bite my fingernails. What if part of it fell on the floor and some random person steps on it. Stuck on the bottom of their shoe. A bunch of coincidental stuff comes up and my DNA is tested against a fingernail/hair under victim's shoe... match. I'm doomed.

This is a plot point in the film Gattaca. I'd recommend watching it if you haven't already:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca


>Sometimes I comb my hair, or bite my fingernails.

You don't even need to comb your hair to leave DNA all over the place. A normal person will lose 50-100 hairs every day.[0]

Also, everyone sheds dead skill cells, and certain dermatological conditions can exacerbate matters.

[0] http://www.aad.org/dermatology-a-to-z/diseases-and-treatment...


...everyone sheds dead skill cells...

True. If you're in an office you haven't visited before and would like to be disgusted, examine the bottoms of a few mice.




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