How do you ID a dead Osama?

By Christie Wilcox 

 

Osama bin Laden is dead. At least, that's what we've been told, and I tend to believe such things.

But how do they know it's him? Well, they have the visual evidence and the body, for one. But to be certain it's not a look-alike, the U.S. government has taken a step above and beyond to make sure they've got who they think they have: DNA analysis.

Now, I'm not entirely sure what DNA analysis has been done, but I can say this for certain—whatever method they used could be completed in a matter of hours given a lab ready to go and focused solely on this. Using commonplace PCR methods—which, for the record, is what I use in my lab every day—Bin Laden could easily be ID'd faster than you'd think. Heck, I can get DNA from a fish and turn it into sequences or genotypes in 24 hours, so I think the US government can work faster than me when time is of the essence. Allow me to explain how they could do it so quickly.

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