A new DNA test can restore at least part of the identity of long-dead people who left no trace of their image, scientists reported on Monday. <\/p>\n
The technique has revealed the hair and eye colours of unknown individuals slaughtered as sub-humans by the Nazis and of a mystery woman buried alongside monks in a mediaeval crypt, they said. <\/p>\n
\"This system can be used to solve historical controversies where colour photographs or other records are missing,\" said Wojciech Branicki from Poland's Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow. <\/p>\n
The system, called HIrisPlex, is a fine-tuned version of a tool presented two years ago that looks at tiny variations in the DNA code, and converts these into probabilities for hair and eye colour. <\/p>\n
It can be used on teeth and bones, whose DNA survives better than soft tissues, and which explains the interest in using it for ancient forensics. <\/p>\n
Reporting in the journal Investigative Genetics, the researchers first tested it on a tooth taken from the remains of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who led Poland's government-in-exile in Britain in World War II before dying in a plane crash in 1943. <\/p>\n
Sikorski's body was disinterred from a cemetery in Newark, England, in 1993 for reburial in pomp in Krakow, but was exhumed once more in 2008 for further examination to sound out a theory that he had been poisoned, shot or strangled. <\/p>\n
Analysis of the genetic code from the tooth gave a 99-percent likelihood that Sikorski had blue eyes, and an 85-percent likelihood that he had blond hair. <\/p>\n
Both tallied with contemporary descriptions of Sikorski and with paintings of him made many years after his death (no colour photographs of him are known to exist). <\/p>\n
HIrisPlex also gave a partial fix on the identity of 12 people who had been killed in a prison in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1942 and whose names have never been known. <\/p>\n
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See more here: A new DNA test can restore at least part of the identity of long-dead people who left no trace of their image, scientists reported on Monday. The technique has revealed the hair and eye colours of unknown individuals slaughtered as sub-humans by the Nazis and of a mystery woman buried alongside monks in a mediaeval crypt, they said Continue reading
\nDNA test sheds light on mystery deaths<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"