Nanoparticles Clearly Finger the Culprit

Law enforcement officers currently search for prints by dusting a crime scene with fluorescent powder. This sticks to the oily residue left by the fingertip, showing up the whorls and ridges. But sometimes the prints are not clear enough to finger a suspect. A new dust being developed at the University of Sunderland is made of sticky nanoparticles could help. The nanoparticles are tiny glass spheres between 200 and 600nm in diameter. As well as being speckled with a fluorescent dye, they are coated with hydrophobic molecules, which are repelled by water and attracted to oil. So they fix tightly to the fingerprint