Last June, I organised an event in the Science Museum's Dana Centre, exploring the latest techniques in forensic science. One of the speakers, Dr John Bond of Northamptonshire Police, told us about a new method he had devised for revealing fingerprints on metal objects - guns, bullets, crowbars, that kind of thing.
Instead of 'dusting' for prints, he had discovered that the mild corrosive properties of sweat can etch fingerprints permanently onto metal surfaces. These prints can be recovered even after a bullet has been fired, a bomb has exploded, or a knife found in a lake after 20 years.
Dr Bond had never really done much work with the public before our event, but since then he's become something of a media star. I've been following his involvement over the past few months in several unsolved cases in the US. Then, in December, Dr Bond's technique was named by Time magazine as one of the top 50 inventions of 2008!
You can read about Dr Bond's latest exploits in this article on the BBC website today.
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