Raychelle Burks
Raychelle Burks is associate professor in chemistry at American University, Washington, DC, US
OpinionFrom the St Valentine’s Day Massacre to modern ballistics analysis
Computational methods are making firearm evidence more statistically sound
- Opinion
Mass spectrometry to catch Christmas tree thieves and timber traffickers
Forensic chemistry can help uncover pine pilfering and fiendish fir felling
- Opinion
Confusing cannabinoids
Decomposition during GC–MS analysis can thwart efforts to determine if a product is legal
- Podcast
Book club – Murder isn’t Easy by Carla Valentine
Delving into Agatha Christie’s pioneering forensic writing with special guests Raychelle Burks and Kathryn Harkup
- Opinion
Why eating a sleigh’s worth of candy canes is a bad idea
Like any compound, the festive flavour of peppermint can be harmful in high doses
- Opinion
The dead of aconite
Whether human, witch or werewolf, beware a flower known as the queen of poisons
- Opinion
Insulin as a murder weapon
Forensic experts can tell if high insulin levels have a natural or criminal cause
- Opinion
Stable isotopic analysis identifies unknown casualties of war
Humanitarian aid provided by forensic science
- Opinion
Identifying mineralised tissue in the fight against wildlife crime
Is it horn, antler, teeth, ivory… or artificial?
- Opinion
Ancient antidotes
Favourites of emperors and royalty, theriacs were the universal cures of their day
- Opinion
Poisons leave no mushroom for error
Will you enjoy a delicious treat, or endure excruciating agony?
- Opinion
The non-romantic history of Valentine’s Meat Juice
If ‘meat juice’ be the food of love, the appetite may sicken, and so die
- Opinion
How to break up a Christmas party
Did a thrown glass shard fell a festive partygoer, or was he stabbed?
- Opinion
A rice kind of fingerprint powder
A new method for producing print powders goes against the grain
