Flutterby™! : questioning uniqueness 2008-07-20 20:08:14.645612+02

questioning uniqueness

2008-07-20 20:08:14.645612+02 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

One of the issues with fingerprints is that there's remarkably little evidence backing up some of the claims of uniqueness. Turns out that's also true for "DNA fingerprinting": DNA matches are starting to turn up among completely unrelated people:

The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.

In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches -- each seeming to defy impossible odds.

Via.

There was a good analysis of the reason for the number of matches found in the Slashdot post for this story.

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