Rapid test can tell human from animal blood at crime scenes

An illustration showing chalk outlines of various animals with blood on a road

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Spectroscopy combined with statistics could provide answers in hit-and-run cases

A rapid and accurate test can tell human blood from animal, without destroying the sample. This could assist forensic scientist onsite at hit-and-run crime scenes.

Animal and human blood are identical to the naked eye, but different at a biochemical level. Telling blood samples apart is particularly important in hit-and-run cases when suspects might lie that an incident involved an animal and not a human.