Continuation Part Eight: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

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anglolawyer said:
:D you rotten bugger! Kudos to you though, Diocletus. I know you have been digging away at this stuff for ages and I take my hat off to you.


They had what you had.
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No they didn't. I had time. Plus, I didn't have to worry about things like gastro-intestinal emptying, the memory-enhancing effects of heroin, and lamps.
 
anglolawyer said:
Dumb it down further. Explain Ct without a link and briefly (I will use more questions to open it up). Explain how the wiki piece relates specifically to the clasp. Tell us what may have happened to result in us seeing what we see.
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Ct is the nth cycle at which the machine detects a critical mass of DNA in the reaction.

That said, the definition of Ct isn't that important to understand. All you need to know is that the calibration of this run is way different than the calibration of the other runs, and that isn't supposed to happen and it means that something is screwed up in the functioning of the machine.
 
Diocletus said:
Ct is the nth cycle at which the machine detects a critical mass of DNA in the reaction.

That said, the definition of Ct isn't that important to understand. All you need to know is that the calibration of this run is way different than the calibration of the other runs, and that isn't supposed to happen and it means that something is screwed up in the functioning of the machine.
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How would explain it to a jury?
 
Bill Williams said:
Why? Let's assume I know nothing and actually ache in the brain when scientists talk.....
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Skind said:
Basically: the negative controls that should have gone all the way through the machine 50 times and not detect any dna (because the whole point is that none of the materials that go into a negative control should have dna in them) only managed to go through 32 times before dna was found.

Translation: there was dna in the negative controls when there should have been none.

Basically: the positive controls should have given back a result matching what was known to go it, as the positive controls use a standard mix that has a known quantity of dna in (because it's typically mixed in the production lab to have exactly that amount of dna), yet they showed vastly higher amounts of dna.

Translation: there was more dna in the positive controls than should have been, with no rational basis for thinking the extra come from anywhere other than the machine.
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Truly I am not trying to be difficult here.....

But it needs dumbing down further. The reason I go on and on about Nencini's astonishing gaffe about female Y-Haplotypes found on the bra-clasp, is that this is the kind of error I am prone to make.

Truly, if this is as earth shattering as you folk claim, it's got to be put in a way that even an Italian judge cannot ignore.
 
Bill Williams said:
Truly I am not trying to be difficult here.....

But it needs dumbing down further. The reason I go on and on about Nencini's astonishing gaffe about female Y-Haplotypes found on the bra-clasp, is that this is the kind of error I am prone to make.

Truly, if this is as earth shattering as you folk claim, it's got to be put in a way that even an Italian judge cannot ignore.
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May I offer my own dumb-downed interpretation:

You have this machine.
You put something in one end and it gives a result out the other end.
To make sure it is working correctly you do a couple of things:
  1. You put a known nothing in the input end, and expect a known nothing result from the output end.
  2. You put a known something in the input end, and expect a known something result from the output end.
If either of these fails, something is wrong.

I am not clear on whether these tests are performed:
  • - Previous to sample runs?
  • - With every sample run?
  • - After every sample run?
  • - A combination of above?

Cody
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Desert Fox said:
Question, is there any evidence with Rudy of being a "Peeping Tom?"
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I must object to your line of questioning about Rudy. He is a burglar, murderer, and serial non-flusher, but don't cast aspersions on "Poor Rudy" being a peering tom! You really know how to hit a guy when he is down. :p
 
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kwill said:
A single hour of tape, 37 people captured, one subset of those -- the ones captured during the 21 minutes -- all did the same thing. They stopped to look left . . . doesn't that imply that the rest -- during the other 39 minutes did not behave this way? I think so, unless the writer is just jerking the public chain.
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No it does not. At most it implies that their is a single pair of non-conforming events bracketing that range. Such is the natural result of the search.
 
Diocletus said:
No they didn't. I had time. Plus, I didn't have to worry about things like gastro-intestinal emptying, the memory-enhancing effects of heroin, and lamps.
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They had bags of time. Maybe not enough money or not enough brains but plenty of time.

ETA what we have is hindsight.
 
Strozzi said:
You better explain it as being machine error. If you suggest that it is operator error, you are slandering a police official.
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How about presenting this data to worldwide forensic DNA experts and have an international condemnation of her. . . .I think that would be pretty painful.
 
codyjuneau said:
.
May I offer my own dumb-downed interpretation:

You have this machine.
You put something in one end and it gives a result out the other end.
To make sure it is working correctly you do a couple of things:
  1. You put a known nothing in the input end, and expect a known nothing result from the output end.
  2. You put a known something in the input end, and expect a known something result from the output end.
If either of these fails, something is wrong.

I am not clear on whether these tests are performed:
  • - Previous to sample runs?
  • - With every sample run?
  • - After every sample run?
  • - A combination of above?

Cody
.
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Tests are run in batches of up to 96 samples per run. The samples are in individual sealed microtubes laied out in a 12x8 grid. Specific locations in that grid are customarily reserved for negative controles and positive controles of varying strength. The remaining slots are then filed with unknown samples, splitting each sample into two slots.

The process is a simple temperature cycle. The temperature is raised causing the double helix of the DNA strands to separate. The temperature is then lowered causing each half strand to grow a new second half from the raw materials in the buffer. The process is so simple because the magic is already built into the DNA.

After each cycle the double strands of DNA are made to fluoresce and this allows the quantity of DNA in each tube to be measured directly. But, since there is always background fluorescence present in the buffer, the DNA cannot be seen until its fluorescence is sufficiently greater than that background. The "threshold" value is a level of fluorescence that the machine is set to look for.

By knowing the number of amplification cycles and the DNA fluorescence after the threshold has been reached it is possible to very accurately calculate the total DNA within the sample before the process began. This quantity is displayed in two ways. Expressed as grams using scientific notation. Or in a compact form known as Ct that is more usefull to the geneticist performing further processing on the original sample. Ct is a composite number where the whole part is the number of amplification cycles taken to reach threshold and the fractional part is an interpolation of how far the fluorescence was above the threshold.
 
I see the following possibilities. Raffaele's dna was present on the bra clasp hook
1. As it lay on the floor.
2. Accidentally deposited as it was collected.
3. Deliberately deposited as it was collected.
4. Accidentally before testing in the lab.
5. Deliberately before testing in the lab.
6. Never on the clasp.

As I understand it the strange testing procedures suggest 4 5 or 6.
 
This case makes one have to reconsider the whole field of DNA and if it is really so reliable when there are some many potential testing problems.
Are there any cases similar where this kind of evidence was presented to a judge and the judge was able to see the evidence was garbage.
Would be interesting to see what the full results with the Gary Leiterman are
 
The DNA of John Ruelas

Desert Fox said:
This case makes one have to reconsider the whole field of DNA and if it is really so reliable when there are some many potential testing problems.
Are there any cases similar where this kind of evidence was presented to a judge and the judge was able to see the evidence was garbage.
Would be interesting to see what the full results with the Gary Leiterman are
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In the Leiterman case the evidence of contamination is easy to understand, yet somehow he was convicted. That case has long bothered me.
 
Diocletus said:
Remember how the cops went to get the bra clasp as soon as they learned that the Sollecitos had rubbished the shoe prints?

Check this out: http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/batch-5-bra-clasp-contamination-undocumented-re-run-tampering/
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I don't consider myself to be stupid, of course who does, even if one is as dumb as a box of rocks? Anyway, I really tried to understand this. I read it and reread it quite a few times, but I am just not understanding what it is showing. Is there any way to make it comprehensible to us non-scientists?

I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into it already, and I sincerely appreciate what you've done. I simply cannot discern what it all means. I'm sorry. :o
 
Desert Fox said:
How about presenting this data to worldwide forensic DNA experts and have an international condemnation of her. . . .I think that would be pretty painful.
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If this is sustained by independent experts, it had better be part of the defences' appeal to Cassazione. ... it has to be in in a week!
 
Bill Williams said:
If this is sustained by independent experts, it had better be part of the defences' appeal to Cassazione. ... it has to be in in a week!
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Even not going there, there is the European Court of Appeals and Extradition to look at. The more this case looks like bad comedy, the more likely it is to be quietly dropped in a trash can.
 
Diocletus,
This is potentially a VERY significant explosive finding. Do you or anyone one on this forum know who authored this critique of the evaluation of DNA from the bra clasp by Steffanoni?
 
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