Today we travel to a future where forensic science gets so sensitive, just touching something could mean becoming suspect number one. 

Guests:

• Raychelle Burks — professor of chemistry at St. Edward’s University
• Kelley Kulick — deputy public defender at the Santa Clara Public Defender’s Office
• Mitra Sharafi — professor of law at University of Wisconsin Law School
• Mary Graw Leary — professor of law at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law

Further Reading:

• Raychelle Burks on Poisons, Medicine, and Communicating Science
• Forensic Nightmare: The Perils of Touch DNA
• Could Secondary DNA Transfer Falsely Place Someone at the Scene of a Crime? 
• Framed for Murder By His Own DNA
• Forensics gone wrong: When DNA snares the innocent
• Touch DNA and Chemical Analysis of Skin Trace Evidence: Protecting Privacy While Advancing Investigations
• The origin of unknown source DNA from touched objects
• DNA fingerprints from fingerprints
• Cocaine Contaminates Majority of U.S. Currency
• The ‘CSI Effect’: Does It Really Exist?
• The CSI effect on cold case investigations
• Imprint of the Raj by Chandak Sengoopta
• The Hounds of Empire: Forensic Dog Tracking in Britain and its Colonies, 1888-1953
• Global Forensic Cultures: Making Fact and Justice in the Modern Era
• The Imperial Serologist and Punitive Self-Harm: Bloodstains and Legal Pluralism in British India
• The Supreme Digital Divide

Actors:

• Evan Johnson as Mr. Morton
• Brent Rose as Dr. Karpou
• Helen Rosner as Dr. Duncan Dougal
• Tamara Krinsky as Dr. Susan Simmons

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Matt Lubchansky. Special thanks this episode to Evan Johnson who coordinated all the teens you’re going to hear in this season, and who plays our intrepid debate club teacher this season. Here’s a fun fact about the intros this season, the actors, the teens, actually wrote their own scripts. I assigned them sides, and they had to come up with their arguments. So I actually did not know what they were going to say until we got into the studio. Special thanks also to Veronica Simonetti and Erin Laetz at the Women’s Audio Mission, where all the intro scenes were recorded this season. Check out their work and mission at womensaudiomission.org.

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook or by email at info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas! And if you think you’ve spotted one of the little references I’ve hidden in the episode, email us there too. If you’re right, I’ll send you something cool.

And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! Head to www.flashforwardpod.com/support for more about how to give. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.

That’s all for this future, come back next time and we’ll travel to a new one.

Flash Forward is a critically acclaimed podcast about the future.

In each episode, host Rose Eveleth takes on a possible (or not so possible) future scenario — everything from the existence of artificial wombs, to what would happen if space pirates dragged a second moon to Earth. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Could there ever be a black market for fecal transplants? (Complicated, it wouldn’t, and yes, respectively, in case you’re curious.) By combining audio drama and deep reporting, Flash Forward gives listeners an original and unique window into the future, how likely different scenarios might be, and how to prepare for what might come.