This is a general questions about DNA.
For some time I've been watching shows like "Who do you think you are?" I love it, the stories of these people are sometimes like novels!
They run the persons DNA and the result says he/she is 80% European, 10% African and 10% Native American. Sometimes they can even pinpoint it down to nationality in Europe or tribe in Africa etc.
I'm just thinking they should be able to tell more about Maria based on her DNA? Or?
Interesting article imo, concerning the use of hair analysis to determine locations where an unidentified person has lived.
http://www.thestar.com/life/2012/01...p_forensic_investigators_identify_bodies.html
"When water is consumed, it leaves a chemical fingerprint in hair. And because people tend to drink and cook with their local water, which can vary by region, the signature left on the hair will be geographically unique.
“This is a new tool to help investigators who’ve hit a wall. Sometimes they have no idea where to look,” says St-Jean. “You can get DNA from a body that you’ve found, but if that person never wound up in a DNA database, it’s a useless piece of information.”
Researchers can tell where a person has been by studying the hydrogen and oxygen in the hair. Specifically, they analyze stable isotopes — different forms of the same chemical element — in the hair.
Because hair retains isotopic information, and grows about one centimetre each month, it can provide a personal chronology of where a person has been. If a person moves across the country over the course of a year, that movement will be reflected in the last 12cms of hair growth.
The longer the hair, the longer the trail of footsteps. It’s like having a passport that’s been stamped along the way.
So if an unidentified body is found in downtown Toronto, the person’s hair may indicate they’re not from the city, but a resident of a remote community in northern Ontario — a detail that could prove useful to investigators".
