Forensic Friends

In this (post) Halloween Special, Shelley and Natalie talk about the (pseudo)science of ghosts and ghost hunting. They also call out Shelley's ghost husband for messing with the recording.

This week, Natalie wraps up the insanity defences with arguably the worst one yet; the Durham Rule. She and Shelley also discuss why the insanity defence isn't used very often, and also the dangers of mugwort.

What makes a claim pseudoscientific as opposed to scientific? Shelley discusses the six hallmarks of pesudoscience, and the problem with modern pseudoscience being closer to real science than it ever has been. She and Natalie also talk about their favourite ghost hunting moments, which is both relevant to the topic and to the season!

This week, we continue with the Insanity Defence mini-series and Natalie describes an insanity defence that fell out of favour in America: the Substantial Capacity Test. Shelley and Natalie also try to determine if a certain orange tyrant might actually get off with an insanity defence.

Shelley goes over the principles and precedent-setting cases that form the rules of evidence, AKA what type of evidence and expert witness testimony is allowed in court. She and Natalie also discuss the differences that seem to exist between Canadian and American legal culture.

This week, Shelley seeks out a koalogist (?) to confirm if koalas actually only eat eucalyptus while Natalie tells her about another possible "insanity defense"; the Irresistible Impulse Rule.

Call this self-serving, but Shelley decides to take this opportunity to shed more light about what happens to the samples sent in for medical testing. She teaches Natalie a little bit about the basics of microbiology and gives a rundown of a typical day in a medical microbiology lab, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lab.

Patients might not always interact directly with lab professionals, but that doesn't mean they're not an important part of the healthcare team. It's also time that other healthcare professionals understand that.

We talk about altered states of consciousness this week...kind of. Natalie tells a very loopy Shelley about one of the rules used in the courts to determine if the "insanity defense" applies to an accused. 

Shelley combines her BSc. in Forensics with her current work in microbiology and tells Natalie about how viral infections like herpes and COVID-19 can be detected using PCR, a technique that is also used in forensic science for DNA profiling. Check out episode 4 for more information about DNA analysis in forensics!

This week, Natalie tells Shelley about the actually ancient practice of face reading, or "physiognomy" which no one seems to know how to pronounce.