A Spray of DNA to Keep the Robbers Away


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ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands — When the McDonald's down from City Hall here was burglarized a few years ago, its managers decided they needed a new security system.

It was just about that time that local police officers were offering something totally different that they hoped would stem a rising tide of robberies that occur mainly in the immigrant neighborhoods of this rough-and-tumble port city. The new system involved an employee-activated device that sprays a fine, barely visible mist laced with synthetic DNA to cover anyone in its path, including criminals, and simultaneously alerts the police to a crime in progress.

The mist — visible only under ultraviolet light — carries DNA markers particular to the location, enabling the police to match the burglar with the place burgled. Now, a sign on the front door of the McDonald's prominently warns potential thieves of the spray's presence: "You Steal, You're Marked."

The police acknowledge that they have yet to make an arrest based on the DNA mist, which was developed in Britain by two brothers, one a policeman and the other a chemist. But they credit its presence — and signs posted prominently warning of its use — for what they call a precipitous decline in crime rates (though they could not provide actual figures to back that up).

But the goal is not so much capturing crooks as scaring them away.

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The police acknowledge that they have yet to make an arrest based on the DNA mist, which was developed in Britain by two brothers, one a policeman and the other a chemist. But they credit its presence ? and signs posted prominently warning of its use ? for what they call a precipitous decline in crime rates (though they could not provide actual figures to back that up).

It might be wishful thinking on there part.

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How widespread is the spray? I wouldn't want to be covered in this crap just because I picked the wrong time to walk into a McDonalds......and also with the signs on the door wouldn't that just alert the thief to take a shower after he gets home and burn his clothes?

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I didn't quite understand this.

What if you wore a disposable plastic suit ?

Can't the DNA goop be washed away ?

DNA is a fairly resilient molecule, and the means to amplify a single fragment of DNA billions of times over is within the hands of any general biology student. Yes, you can wash most of it off, but I imagine this mist is pretty loaded with molecules. Lets say you get hit with a gram of DNA powder made of copies of a piece of DNA 80 base pairs long. A single molecule weighs about 25000 daltons, meaning that one gram contains 2.4x10^19 molecules. How many are left after you wash off 99.999999999% of them?

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