Chapter 1: What is forensic botany and how is it used in criminal investigations?
Future Proof with Jonathan McRae on Newstalk. Proudly supported by Research Ireland.
Hello and welcome to Future Proof, the podcast. This is the show where we take a closer look at the world around us. I am Jonathan McRae. Coming up in this week's programme, we're going to be talking about plant forensics or forensic botanists who use information and clues from plants to solve crimes. It's a really interesting one. And at the end of the pod, myself and Aidan...
have some interesting reflections on it, so stay with us for that. In the meantime, if you want to email us, scienceatnewstalk.com, we get to all of those comments later on, and we kick off, as always, looking back at some of the more interesting stories from the world of science this week. We're joined by Laura Hayes and Tara Shine. You're both very welcome.
Our first story, Tara, has to do with the pandemic, which was so difficult for all of us, so incredibly painful for many, so serious a global condition that surely it can never happen again.
One would hope, unfortunately, this story is about the fact that we're actually unprepared for the next pandemic because we haven't got it together at a global level to agree on how we're going to collaborate in the next pandemic. So there will be another pandemic.
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Chapter 2: What role do plants play in solving crimes?
Question is, can we learn and do better than the last time? And the last time, although it was awful for all of us, looked at globally, it was most awful for people internationally. in poorer countries. And so it really increased inequities and inequalities in the world.
And so what is trying to be agreed now is a system to more equitably share information, genetic information, but also the benefits like the vaccines that will be needed in the next pandemic. And basically the world is a bit stuck on agreeing all of that.
Any nations stand out in particular here?
It's a real north-south divide. Reading about this really reminded me of the climate negotiations. So the developed countries on one side are quite keen to hang on, if you like, to their preferential access to the vaccines, which ultimately are developed in the north, which is where all the labs are.
But in order to create those, they have to get access to the pathogens and the genetic material which comes from all over the world, including the global south. And so what they're trying to do is create a system that is going to be fairer in the way that we provide access to these pathogens and develop and share access to the solutions.
And although an initial kind of accord was agreed back in May 2025, it was only agreed because they fudged this issue of pathogen access and benefit sharing. They stuck it into an annex and said they'd come back to it later. Later is now.
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Chapter 3: How can plant evidence help determine the timing of a death?
They haven't been able to agree it. And then on the 1st of May, they've actually had to push it into the next session in Geneva under the WHO. So it continues on into the month of July with the two like two amazing ladies leading this process.
Ellen Johnson, certainly former president of Liberia and Helen Clark, former president of New Zealand, are the two at the helm of this trying to steer the countries of the world to an agreement.
Now, in today's sociopolitical environment, can any country, when put up against it, be expected to behave as it should in a treaty like this in the face of something like the pandemic we saw before? Because we saw countries behave in ways they absolutely shouldn't. And I'm just wondering what the point of a treaty like this is when it comes to it's you or us, mate,
are countries really going to follow a treaty like this, or are they going to act in self-interest, not looking at any country in particular?
So I guess that's a bigger question about, you know, the future and the present, if you like, of multilateralism. So multilateralism exists, and that's part of like the world order of things, which, you know, leaders like Trump are very willing to break that world order and break those common rules. But the problem is,
that in something like a global pandemic, same as with climate change, things like this, no one country can make themselves safe completely in a globalized world. So even the countries that shut themselves down completely during the COVID-19 pandemic, they still needed other countries for goods and services. They still needed other countries because they perhaps created the vaccine.
So no country is an island in this sense, in that no country can actually exist on its own.
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Chapter 4: What are the challenges forensic botanists face at crime scenes?
They can try for a while and try and look after themselves. But as every country needs another country for something, I imagine it would break down over time. That's why we have the multilateral systems. But is the multilateral system under threat at the moment because of the actions of bad actors? Yes. But I think, you know, good reason to double down on these shared rules.
Well, I mean, you know, when you think about the developing countries, as they're sometimes called, forming a coalition where you basically shut off raw materials to the north if they don't share, you know, science, innovation and access to vaccines might end up being quite a powerful move.
So it'd be really interesting to see how in the future developing countries might navigate, you know, being shut off as they were during the first pandemic.
Exactly, and imagine if those developing countries were at the heart of the next pandemic and they refused to share the genetic material or information around how that virus was affecting their people. Then it would slow down the process of understanding that virus, of developed countries being able to be prepared and ready for it, of being able to slow down global travel systems.
So unless everybody cooperates in this, it can't work. We can't all be safe. So again, this is another one of those things where it's in everybody's best interest, actually, to get this global customer online.
Unfortunately, like so many problems in our world, it's as simple as the nose in your face.
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Chapter 5: How do forensic botanists identify plant species from evidence?
If everybody collaborates, we solve this problem. But that's not how the world works, unfortunately. Interesting to see what happens in the next pandemic. Our second story, Laura, has to do with magic mushrooms.
Magic mushrooms, it does indeed. And this is something that we have talked about before is the effects of, you know, psychedelic drugs on your mental state. And this is an interesting study because this moves psychological, like psychedelic research beyond the question of, you know, when you take them, do people hallucinate? But trying to look at the measurable impacts on the brain.
We've talked before about how magic mushrooms and DMT have a very positive effect with people with depression and long-term depression.
But this really looks at...
Exactly, exactly. Nobody go out and... Consult your doctor. Yes, yes, absolutely. But there's a huge amount of research going on to see how these type of psychedelic drugs impact your brain. So this study actually looked at psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.
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Chapter 6: What are some notable cases where forensic botany made a difference?
But they looked at 28 healthy volunteers who had never taken psychedelics before. And this is maybe in comparison to a lot of studies who have tried these with people who have depression. But looking at healthy, active volunteers, average age around 41, and tried to give them kind of a high dose of psilocybin, so 25 milligrams, not just your micro dosing, you're having a full psychedelic effect.
And what they did is they measured their brain activity and their wellbeing both before their trip, during their trip, and then a month after their trip. And what they found was, you know, by looking at, you know, MRIs and EEGs of their brain, they found it's kind of increased brain entropy during their trip.
So if you think of your brain in some way becoming less rigid, you know, less repetitive, less predictable in some senses.
Crusty old brain.
Exactly. It's kind of opening up these new pathways. And they found this during, you know, two hours into their maybe four hour trip, it was the most entropic brain entropy that they had.
So they were able to measure this and then after that they found, you know, there was still this increase in brain entropy, but those that had kind of the highest brain entropy during this time actually found, you know, a month later had a, you know, a better well-being, was feeling good, having kind of new life insights.
Yeah, but like, could they tie their shoelaces? I mean, and that's obviously an extreme example. What I mean is, you know, is permanent change of our brain where, you know, you're more open to change, is that always a good thing?
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Chapter 7: How does the decomposition of bodies affect surrounding vegetation?
Yeah, I mean, this is a very, very early study in trying to measure that, right? What are these long-term impacts? And they actually found that there are possible anatomical changes to your brain. Now, it's not that you're completely rewired and that's not what the study is saying at all, but there are kind of small, subtle changes in the white matter pathways of your brain.
So thinking of a kind of, you know, shaking things up a little bit to kind of help with these pathways that might be in a negative way repetitive.
So again, it's kind of... But they don't know what the consequences of these changes... By the way, no judgment here. You do you.
But my question is, the changes that they're talking about, because we've heard about positive mental changes and so on, but these permanent changes that happen as a result of taking hallucinogens, do we have any idea whether or not they may have negative consequences in the future?
Well, yeah, I guess this is what we're trying to find. And they found for this study with healthy participants in a controlled environment, no.
Thank you, Laura. Our third story, Tara, has to do with knee surgery. And it's quite timely because I just banged my knee in football yesterday.
Yeah, so this study from the University of Helsinki is going on about 20 years. And they have found that the most common type of knee surgery is ineffective.
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Chapter 8: What is the future of forensic botany in criminal justice?
It doesn't work, doesn't do anything. And in fact, it could possibly make things worse. Wow. And this is the most common orthopedic procedure globally. I think this is amazing.
Holy smokes.
Yeah, so this is an amazing Finnish study. It's a great example of collaboration, unlike the previous story I was talking about, but where they did clinical trials back between 2007 and 2012, and they had 126 participants take part, and they all had mechanical knee problems. So that was like knee catching or knee locking, right?
And they were aged between 35 and 65, and they were randomly assigned to groups And some of them got the actual surgery. The surgery is called arthroscopic partial menisctomy. And so part of them, half of them got the surgery and the half had a sham surgery or a placebo, basically. So they didn't actually get the surgery, but they didn't know.
And they then reviewed the patients to look at what the impact had been two, six, and 12 months later. And they found no statistical difference between the placebo and the actual surgery. Just none. And this caused consternation back in 2018 when they did the five-year follow-up and they published their results. And
the whole orthopedic community was thrown into disarray and they were accused of having like, you know, malpractice in the way they had designed their trial or someone even said that they had, you know, recruited people that weren't of full mental capacity to take part in the trial.
They were that sure that the, I mean, this is the thing, when you're bought into doing something, you've seen the results in people and you're so sure of something, you know, you have this confirmation bias that it's hard then when someone says what you've been doing for 15 years and charging people before, you know, and that's your specialty, it's a complete waste of time.
It's very difficult, I imagine, to accept that.
And yeah, and it's still going on. People are still getting this procedure all the time. And this is what they say, that what this shows is that there are embedded practices in the orthopedic professional community that are based on strong biological rationale rather than scientific rigor.
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