I was looking for a decent link to get some basics for you, but it turns out
to be difficult because of having to wade through a lot of ads for DNA ID
kits. I did find this one which is informative and straightforward.
http://www.kgl900.com/html/body_dna.htm
The upshot is that they don't check one area, and that to be absolutely accurate you'd want to check
the whole genome, which is of course not practical now. So they check a number of areas where you
usually see the most differences between individuals. Finding that just one of these matches doesn't
necessarily make for a correct ID, but as you find more areas matching the odds go up that you're
seeing a correct match. This is a bit like saying we've got a guy named Herrera, so is that you?
Maybe, but there's a lot of people with that name. So they look for a first name, and an initial,
and an address, and maybe an age, and height. Now if all those match, it's probably you. The odds
are that there isn't somone else at that address with the same name, age, height, etc., and the odds
get better the more things you check and find matches for. So that's what they're doing with DNA
identification.
Jim
Ramon F Herrera <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I was watching the excellent documental "DNA" in PBS, and they mentioned that there is a section
> in some chromosome which is unique for every individual. This is the section used in identifying
> criminals, etc.
>
> Where exactly is this section located? Where can I read more about it?
>
> TIA,
>
> -Ramon