First Documented case involving Forensic Science

I'm a total forensics geek wanna be. If it's been available in my day as a college degree, I might be in a different profession. I love to solve puzzles, and forensics gives us the tools to solve puzzles.

Before CSI, NCIS, and Criminal Minds, someone had to have the thought about how evidence could lead to the truth. I was curious about how the science of forensics came to be. This is what I found.

Once upon a time in 1235 the story of Sung Tzu appears. It contained the first recorded documentation of forensic use to solve crimes. One case noted occurred during the Song Dynasty in China. A man was murdered and the local officials were looking for his killer. They determined he'd been killed by a sickle by experimenting with different weapons on animals.
They asked everyone in town to produce their sickles for examination. Though it was clean, one sickle was still attracting flies due to the scent of blood. They had their killer. Perhaps scared by the evidence before him, the man confessed.

Sung Tzu continued to record his findings in a book called Hsi Yuan Chi Lu (The Washing Away of Wrongs).

Advances continued starting as early as the 1600s.

Major advances include:

1880- Henry Faulds and William James Herschel published a study on fingerprints. This study was used to push for using fingerprints as evidence.

1895-A study by Eduard Piotrowski on blood stains leads to the science of blood spatter analysis

1901-Karl Landsteiner discovers that human blood falls into 1 of 4 groups: A, B, O, AB

1904-Locard's famous principle is born:  "Every contact leaves a trace."

1912-Victor Balthazard discovers that gun barrels have a unique property to them. Therefore, no two guns will leave the same markings on a bullet.

1974-Gunshot residue can now be detected on a suspect

1984-DNA techniques are developed by Sir Alec Jeffreys

I find this all so fascinating, if you have other major advances in mind, post them in the comments.

Happy 1st Birthday, Evernight Teen

Food plays an important role in my young adult mystery, Unraveled. Autumn spends time with her family and extended family over the dinner table. Even Caedon gets introduced to the family over a large meal.


In the Hispanic community, meals are a time to gather together, talk to each other, and just spend time together. I remember lunches at my grandparent's house in Mexico. We would travel their every summer. To this day those are some of my happiest memories. Preparation for lunch started right after breakfast, and usually took the whole morning. There were several courses. One of my favorites was my grandmother's carrot soup. I still need to get the recipe from her.

My grandparent's had several lime trees so we always had pitchers full of limeade to drink during our meals. They also had avocado trees, so fresh guacamole was always available. No wonder I'm such an avocado lover. Mangoes were plentiful, and were usually dessert for all of us.

One of my favorite foods is called flautas. They are corn tortillas filled with shredded chicken. They are rolled up tight, then fried or baked. You can cover them in green or red sauce. I just dipped them in guacamole. You can also fill them with beef or ground beef.

I often get comments from readers that reading Unraveled makes them hungry. I love that. Food plays a big part in Autumn's life so I'm happy that came across.

Unraveled is on sale at the following sites:
Amazon
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Evernight Teen

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To celebrate, Evernight Teen's 1st birthday, I'm giving away a $25 gift card to Amazon. To enter my prize content, please leave a comment naming your favorite family dish.

On Feb.1st, I will randomly select one winner. Be sure to include your e-mail so I can contact you.


To win Evernight Teen's prize of $100 I-Tunes gift card, enter here: a Rafflecopter giveaway You can also enter on the Evernight Teen site. Evernight Teen

Calling all YA bloggers

Evernight Teen is turning 1, and we're celebrating with some wonderful prizes. We're doing a blog hop from January 24-31.
If anyone else would like to participate, please enter your info here: http://sandrapessomarketing.blogspot.com/2014/01/evernight-teen-1st-birthday-blog-hop.html

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Evernight Teen (Teen Read Week) Scavenger Hunt-Win A Kindle!

Juggling Motherhood, Work & Dinner time

Without a doubt, it's a challenge being a mom, working full-time, writing, promoting a book, and being an MFA student.

Sometimes, I feel like I go from one job to another, so when it's time to cook dinner, it's a source of major stress. I actually like to cook, but I don't know how to cook too many things. This past year, I've focused on eating fresher foods so I'm not in favor of box-a-meals, although I do use them.

I'm fortunate to have a dietitian at work and I've recently starting keeping a food diary on My Fitness Pal. My meals are too carb heavy so I was challenged to come up with some other ideas.

I'd like to branch out and learn more quick meals so she gave me an awesome cookbook, The New Soul Food Cookbook. It's actually a book for diabetics which I'm not, but I am trying to make meals low in carbs and sugars to help me lose weight.

It has delicious looking recipes with only a few ingredients-Perfect for a working mom. I can't wait to try some.

Tonight we made a really tasty meal and my daughter actually made the hot dog dish. I made the quinoa salad.

Here's how we did it:

Hot Dogs: (Let your kids make this)

I put some melted butter in a small bowl, and she painted slices of 100% whole wheat bread.
She put a turkey hot dog in the middle, then wrapped the bread (buttered side out) around the hot dog. We fastened it with a skewer because I didn't have a toothpick.

We baked for 18 minutes on 325 degrees.

Quinoa:

I made the quinoa according to the instructions on the box, except I used vegetarian broth instead of water to give it extra flavor. I put some yellow squash, carrots, and zucchini in my mini food processor, then added that to the quinoa. I also threw in some grape tomatoes and green beans from our garden.

Quinoa is a good alternative to rice or pasta. It has protein in it and isn't as starchy. Plus it's a great dish to hide your veggies in.

We added some fresh strawberries as another side dish.

It was a filling meal, not to mention nutritious. It was great to have my daughter actually make part of the meal and she was so proud of herself. It only took 20 minutes, and was minimal clean-up. Two big positives in my house.

Here's a photo:

Steampunk 101

I remember when I first heard about  steampunk. It was a new and emerging subgenre that was getting a lot of press due to the release of Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. I checked it out and fell it love with the look and feel of the period. The Victoria era wardrobe juxtaposed with the metals and innovation of the steam era.

This past week-end I attended DogCon2 at the Thurber Center. There were writing workshops, readings, Tarot Card readings, and kid's activities. I attended a workshop on Steampunk so I could learn more about it.

The speakers were from a local Columbus group called Airship Archon. They discussed the clothing and accessories of which the majority are handmade or hand sewn. They named estate sales, vintage shops, and Etsy as great places to find materials. If you live in Columbus, they recommended, The Alley Store.

They also discussed the literature that inspired them. From the classics, you have Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Verne wrote novels such as Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, and The Carpathian Castle. H.G. Wells is probably best known for The Time Machine, but also wrote The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

For more contemporary literature they mentioned Gail Carriger's novels. They also noted that it's hard to find good steampunk literature that is true to spirit they embody at Airship Archon. Most of it seems artificial with all things steampunk thrown in haphazardly.

They are an amazing group of people. They hold monthly events which are open to the public. They get together to create costumes or other steampunk related items. They also speak at numerous conventions. The list of topics is listed on their website.

There were two surprising facts for me:

One is that steampunk is considered a subgenre of science fiction. For some reason, I never put that together.
Two is that there are subgenres of steampunk such as clockpunk, meatpunk, dieselpunk, and cyberpunk. Each inspired by an era of invention.

I also learned how to make a pair of steampunk goggles from welder's goggles. Each speaker was so creative and a pleasure to listen to. I came away with an idea for an art piece so we'll have to see if that works out.

Evernight Teen Summer Ebook Sale-.99 on Amazon

Need a few more books to read during summer vacation? All Evernight Teen titles, including my YA mystery, Unraveled, are on sale for a week on Amazon.

Check them all out: Evernight Teen Amazon Kindle books:

Disintegrate by Christine Klocek-Lim
Phoenix: The Rising by Bette Maybee
Shrapnel by Stephanie Lawton
Elysium by Sylah Sloan
Unraveled by S.X. Bradley
Slayer for Hire by P.E. Cunningham
Blood Hex by Erin Butler