What are the steps to the experimental design process? :: Identify the question, make a prediction, design an experiment, conduct the experiment, analyze the data, and communicate findings.

What are independent & dependent variables?:: Independent variables are changed by the person experimenting, and dependent variables respond to the independent variable being changed.

What is a control group? :: A group where the independent variable is not applied, serving as a base for the comparison against the experimental group.

What are the steps to processing a crime scene?:: Includes documenting the scene through observations, notes, sketches, and photographs. Evidence is then collected, cataloged, and delivered to the appropriate labs.

What are the Crime Scene Search Methods, and when do you use each one? :: Line Method is used for large, outdoor crime scenes, and members proceed to search along straight lines. Grid Method is also used for large outdoor crime scenes, searching in horizontal and vertical lines. Zone method is used in crime scenes having readily defineable zones, such as houses or buildings, teams are assigned small zones for searching. Spiral Method is used on crime scenes with no physical barriers, such as open water, it can go outward spiral or inward spiral. The Wheel or Ray method is used on small, circular crime scenes; starting from a critical point and travel outward along many straight lines from this point.

What are vital signs and which are used in a polygraph?::Measurements—specifically pulse rate, temperature, respiration rate, and blood pressure—that indicate the state of a patient’s essential body functions. Heart rate, and respiratory rate are used in a polygraph.

How can a polygraph determine if someone is not being truthful? :: Someone lied if the heart rate and respiration rate deviate from the control.

What factors are used to help determine fingerprint and hair samples? :: Arch, Loop, and minutiae help determine fingerprints. Hair samples are determined by growth cycle, diameter, artificial treatment, and diseases and other hair abnormalities.

What are minutiae and how are they used? :: Minutiae are tiny fingerprint ridge details. Similarities with at least 12 minutiae are called the twelve-point match.

What are the varying types of digital evidence, and how can they be used? :: Social media streams can determine what the person is doing. The social media story helps understand what the person is doing AND if they had any problems in the past. Text messages and emails help determine who the person was with before the case.

What did you learn from Anna’s digital evidence? :: Anna frequently visits the Library, Gentry LS Building, and drinks a lot of coffee. She has a problem with migraines.

Know the main components of blood. :: Plasma distributes nutrients, removes waste, moves through circulatory system. RBC or erythrocytes lack a nucleus and are hemoglobin rich and transport Oxygen throughout the body. The White BC or Leukocytes lack hemoglobin but have a nucleus and are active in the immune response. The platelets or thrombocytes are colorless and lack a nucleus, and assist in blood clotting by adhering to other platelets and damaged epithelium.

What are the 4 blood types?:: A, B, AB, O

What is agglutination?:: The clumping of particles.

If you have a blood sample and you add anti-A serum and it clumps—what does that mean?:: The blood type is A.

What roles do antigens and antibodies play regarding blood type? :: Antigens stimulate an immune response (they attack this) and antibodies work to impair pathogens. (they accept this)

What can blood spatter tell us about a case? :: It helps analysts form opinions about what did or didn’t happen.

How does blood spatter change when we change the height of the drop? :: The closer you are, the bigger the drop.

What is DNA?:: A negatively charged molecule found in cells of all living things. It lays the foundation for how an organism grows and it is inherited.

How do scientists isolate DNA in order to study it?:: Scientists use enzymes to break down DNA Sequences.

What is a nucleotide? What are the main structural components of it? Draw one and label it.::

A building block of DNA that consists of a five-carbon sugar covalently bonded to a nitrogenous base and a phosphate group.

How does DNA differ from person to person?:: It has a unique genome.

What are the base pairing rules and why do they occur?:: A goes to T, C goes to G; it occurs because they belong to different classes, and there has to be one pyrimidine and purine in a base pair.

If one side of DNA is AATCGTCCGTAATGCA, what is its complementary strand on the other side?::TTAGCAGGCATTACGA

What is a restriction enzyme and where do they come from? How do they cut DNA?:: A restriction enzyme is a molecular scissor that can cut DNA in recognition sites. Restriction enzymes are made naturally by bacteria and are used as a defense against invading viruses.

How do you properly use a micropipette? What is the goal of micropipetting?:: To precisely put a value of liquid (microliters).

What is gel electrophoresis?:: A lab technique to separate DNA, RNA, or proteins based on size.

What kind of charge does DNA have? How is this important to gel electrophoresis?:: Negative; the positive side should be on the opposite of the wells, so the negative would go there.

What is an RFLP? How does size determine how the fragments move?:: Restriction fragment length polymorphisms, the pieces of DNA seen in the DNA fingerprint. The bigger the size, the slower it moves.

Can you interpret gel electrophoresis banding patterns? Can you label all parts of a gel result?:: Lane, ladder, migration, large small fragments, DNA marker, base pairs, charge.

What do you know about Anna Garcia and the case so far? Can you draw any conclusions?:: Anna Garcia is a scientist and college student who is 20 years old and is 135 lbs. She has a history of migraines and loves to drink coffee. She’s been having bad relations with a bunch of people; but Anna most likely has died naturally.