DNA analysis is a key procedure in genetic engineering.
Only one of these techniques, DNA analysis, is based on a solid scientific foundation, they decided.
The methodology that led to Wednesday's announcement, called "touch DNA" analysis, is essentially a way of looking for traces of genetic material that earlier methods would have overlooked.
Along the same vein, TV shows of forensic science where, for example, full DNA analysis is done in under an hour.
"The difficulty for our government agents, these eels when they're in this stage, they're not distinctive enough to be identified at the species level," says Baker, so DNA analysis is the only way to prove their origin.
Ms. Lieberman said DNA analysis is a precise science, and its precision "depends on a whole host of human input, which can go awry at any step in the process".
With improvements in technology and the growth of the national DNA database – it now contains the profiles of more than 5 million people – DNA analysis is becoming an ever more important tool in solving crime.
But DNA analysis is also used by those who study animals -- to help distinguish one closely related species from another, for example, or to study the genetic similarities among members of a threatened species.
DNA analysis is already proving to be one of the most powerful detective tools ever to have been invented.
Furthermore, DNA analysis is now allowing biologists to better decipher the histories of species and to detect past hybridization events that have contributed new genes and capabilities to various kinds of organisms including, it now appears, ourselves.
