Caught red-handed

The diet and sex of a suspected criminal could be discovered from a fingerprint, thanks to new research.

A team at Imperial College London, led by Sergei Kazarian, a professor of physical chemistry, has devised a new technique that collects fingerprints along with their chemical residue and keeps them intact for future reference. It could potentially identify substances that people had been in contact with such as gunpowder, narcotics and traces from biological or chemical weapons.