Biological sex can be confirmed by hand smell, FIU research says
MIAMI — Researchers at Florida International University (FIU) have found an accurate and unique way to determine a person's biological sex: The smell of a person's hand.
According to the research project — published in the open-access science journal PLOS ONE — the novel approach to sex determination can assist in forensics investigations when other biometric indicators such as DNA and fingerprints are limited or nonexistent, stated a Wednesday press release from FIU.
"Our research at FIU is always focused on moving the forensic sciences forward," said Kenneth G. Furton, executive director of the Global Forensic and Justice Center (GFJC) and the project's administrator.
GFJC has one of America's oldest forensic science education programs and has grown into one of the worldd's largest forensic science centers, as well as a mong the most diverse in terms of areas of study, degree areas and geograhical reach, FIU stated.
"A focus of GFJC is to work on research that can be used right now in laboratories to help science serve justice effectively and efficiently," Furton added.
According to FBI figures obtained by FIU, about 72% of crimes are committed by men and 28% are committed by women. The research could also lead to non-forensic applications in the future, FIU noted.
The study relied on a foundational principle in forensic science: Every contact leaves a trace. When a suspect touches something, they leave something behind, including their odor.
The research team collected samples from 60 volunteers, evenly divided among men and women, using sterile gauze pads to capture the smell of their hands. Using common forensic instruments and techniques such as gas chromatrography/mass chromatrography and a data analysis program developed by FIU Ph.D. graduate Vidia Gokool, the team analyzed the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) responsible for an individual's odor. According to FIU, a person's sex could be determined accurately more than 96% of the time using a human-supervised machine learning model.
While dogs can identify human scent — living or deceased — this is one of the first times a person's odor has been analyzed in the lab to accurately determine sex, FIU stated.
"This technique could be used in conjunction with detection canines," said lead researcher Chantrell Frazier. "It can be one more tool for investigators to use to bring justice to victims of crime."