University of Utah scientists have developed a method of analyzing human hair that can determine the general location of a person’s drinking water source during recent weeks to years.
Geochemist Thure Cerling, who led the research effort with ecologist Jim Ehleringer, claims that the method can be used by law enforcement investigators to track past movements of criminal suspects or unidentified murder victims.Their research, published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may also prove useful to anthropologists, archaeologists and medical doctors.
“You are what you eat and drink — and that is recorded in your hair,” Cerling said in the release.
The new technique analyzes stable isotopes of hydrogen (rare hydrogen-2 and common hydrogen-1) and oxygen (rare oxygen-18 and common oxygen-16) contained in growing hair, isotopes which originate in water and food that a person consumes and air they breathe, the release said.
“We have found significant variations in hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in hair and water that relate to where a person lives in the United States. Police are already using this to reconstruct the possible origins of the unidentified murder victims,” said Ehleringer.
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