This is a scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

DNA analysis is a staple of crime scenes and crime shows like HBO's The Night Of, or the old standby, CSI.

So we should get to get this a DNA lab, have them confirm it is our victim's blood,

and then, um then case closed.

And it's not just for crime.

DNA sequencing also helps determine our relationship to Neanderthals and our primate cousins.

Problem is, DNA is a relatively fragile molecule.

It doesn't last forever. What's more sturdy is protein. So now researchers have

come up with a way to use protein in a similar way to DNA, to link an individual to a piece of evidence or to determine ethnic background.

The protein source these scientists studied was human hair, from 76 individuals of European American, African American, and Kenyan descent.

And they determined that the variation of a couple hundred proteins in a person's hair could be enough to singular out from a group of 1 million individuals.

The way it works is that proteins are made according to instructions in DNA, so one individual's

genetic variations can result in slightly different proteins being made compared to another individual.

And by determining the protein composition, the scientists can then extrapolate info about the DNA. The results are in the journal

Ploss 1. The researchers say the technique still is not ready for prime time. Ideally the process

needs to be more sensitive to avoid

consuming valuable crime scene or archaeological samples in the analysis. And the

statistics behind the technique need to be validated too. But someday they say it could come within a

hair of DNA analysis. Thanks for listening. For Scientific American 60

Second Science, I'm Christopher and Daliata.