An Eye for an Eye

 

Here's another possible forensic tool to use in a mystery story:  scientists can now determine when a person was born by looking into the eyes of the deceased. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus used radiocarbon dating method and special proteins in the lens of the eye to accomplish this feat. Although radiocarbon dating is usually used on organisms which have been dead for thousands of years, human technological warfare has made it possible for the researchers to do the same thing with present-day species, such as homo sapiens.

As the article above goes on to state:

"From the end of World War II and up until about 1960, the superpowers of the Cold War era, conducted nuclear tests, detonating bombs into the atmosphere. These detonations have affected the content of radioactive trace materials in the air and created what scientists refer to as the C-14 bomb pulse. From the first nuclear detonation and, until the ban on nuclear testing was evoked, the quantity of C-14 in the atmosphere doubled. Since 1960, it has only slowly decreased to natural levels.

This sudden curve has left an impression in the food chain and therefore also in the lens crystallins of the eyes, which have absorbed the increased carbon content through food stuffs. Since the crystallins remain unchanged once they have been created, they reflect the content of C-14 present in the atmosphere at the time of their creation. An event occurring shortly after birth. Using a large nuclear accelerator, physicists at Aarhus University can now determine the amount of C-14 in as little as one milligram of lens tissue and thereby calculate the year of birth."

Although the scientists involved in the project hope to use the technique for other applications, such as cancer research, mystery writers may beat them to it, as least as far as using the process to solve crimes.