Zee Media Bureau
Washington: A new study has found that trace amounts of lead in modern and historical human teeth can give clues about where they come from, a finding that could help police solve cold cases.
For example, if an unidentified decomposed body is found, testing the lead in the teeth could immediately help focus the investigation on a certain geographic area, which would help law enforcement to avoid wasting resources checking for missing persons in the wrong places, according to the study led by University of Florida geology researcher George D Kamenov.
Kamenov said that pollution signal can be used to figure out where these people came from.
Tooth enamel, which develops during childhood, locks in the lead signals and preserves them and when one grows up, they record the signal of the local environment, but if they move somewhere else, their isotope will be distinct from the local population.
The study, which was published in the Science of The Total Environment, added that even different teeth can reveal certain facts and that modern and historical teeth have different signals.
(With Agencies Input)
