A team in Israel has figured out a process to fabricate DNA evidence. So far they have been able to create fake saliva and blood samples that then passed standard forensic lab tests as being from the framed DNA donor. What’s more frightening is that they not only did this from a small DNA sample such as a hair or a drinking cup, but they were even able to construct wholly artificial DNA evidence by simply having someone’s DNA database record.

On the one hand, this was inevitable. The same thing happened to fingerprints, which were once considered infallible. Science was bound to eventually unseat DNA as the golden child of criminal forensics. It’s probably a good thing. This clearly doesn’t discredit DNA evidence overall, but puts it into perspective with other evidence at a crime scene. You need to build a case, not just collect a sample.

And speaking of inevitable, how long do you think it will be before one of the numerous lab intensive crime dramas picks this up as a plot for the fall season? I’m guessing sweeps week.