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Forensic medicine is a thriving application field for artificial intelligence (AI). Indeed, AI applications intended to forensic pathologists or forensic physicians have emerged since the last decade. For example, AI models were developed to help estimate the biological age of migrants or human remains. However, the uses of AI applications by forensic pathologists or physicians and their levels of integration in medicolegal practices are not well described yet. Therefore, a scoping review was conducted on PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Scopus databases. This review included articles that mention any AI application used by forensic pathologists or physicians in practice or any AI model applied in one expertise field of the forensic pathologist or physician. Articles in other languages than English or French or dealing mainly with complementary analyses handled by experts who are not forensic pathologists or physicians or with AI to analyze data for research purposes in forensic medicine were excluded from this review. All the relevant information was retrieved in each article from a grid analysis derived and adapted from the TRIPOD checklist. This review included 35 articles and revealed that AI applications are developed in thanatology and in clinical forensic medicine. However, those applications seem to mainly remain in research and development stages. Indeed, the use of AI applications by forensic pathologists or physicians is not actual due to issues discussed in this article. Finally, the integration of AI in daily medicolegal practice involves not only forensic pathologists or physicians but also legal professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The likelihood ratio (LR) method is commonly used to determine kinship in civil, criminal, or forensic cases. For the past 15 years, our research group has also applied LR to ancient STR data and obtained kinship results for collections of graves or necropolises. Although we were able to reconstruct large genealogies, some pairs of individuals showed ambiguous results. Second-degree relationships, half-sibling pairs for example, were often inconsistent with detected first-degree relationships, such as parent/child or brother/sister pairs. We therefore set about providing empirical estimations of the error rates for the LR method in living populations with STR allelic diversities comparable to that of the ancient populations we had previously studied. We collected biological samples in the field in North-Eastern Siberia and West Africa and studied more than 800 pairs of STR profiles from individuals with known relationships. Because commercial STR panels were constructed for specific regions (namely Europe and North America), their allelic makeup showed a significant deficit in diversity when compared to European populations, replicating a situation often faced in ancient DNA studies. We assessed the capacity of the LR method to confirm known relationships (effectiveness) and its capacity to detect those relationships (reliability). Concerns over the effectiveness of LR determinations are mostly an issue in forensic studies, while the reliability of the detection of kinship is an issue for the study of necropolises or other large gatherings of unidentified individuals, such as disaster victims or mass graves. We show that the application of LR to both test populations highlights specific issues (both false positives and false negatives) that prevent the confirmation of second-degree kinship or even full siblingship in small populations. Up to 29% of detected full sibling relationships were either overestimated half-sibling relationships or underestimated parent-offspring relationships. The error rate for detected half-sibling relationships was even higher, reaching 41%. Only parent-offspring pairs were reliably detected or confirmed. This implies that, in populations that are small, ill-defined, or for which the STR loci analyzed are inappropriate, an examiner might not be able to distinguish a pair of full siblings from a pair of half-siblings. Furthermore, half-sibling pairs might be overlooked altogether, an issue that is exacerbated by the common confusion, in many languages and cultures, between half-siblings and full siblings. Consequently, in the study of ancient populations, human remains of unknown origins, or poorly surveyed modern populations, we recommend a conservative approach to kinship determined by LR. Next-generation sequencing data should be used when possible, but the costs and technology involved might be prohibitive. Therefore, in potentially contentious situations or cases lacking sufficient external information, uniparental markers should be analyzed: ideally, complete mitochondrial genomes and Y-chromosome haplotypes (STR, SNP, and/or sequencing). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The excavation of five frozen graves at the Sytygane Syhe and Istekh-Myrane burial sites (dated at 400 years old) in central Yakutia revealed five human skeletons belonging to the Yakut population. To investigate the origin and evolution of the Yakut population as well as the kinship system between individuals buried in these two sites, DNA was extracted from bone samples and analyzed by autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) and by sequencing hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. The results showed a diversity of sepulchral organizations linked probably to the social or genetic background of the subjects. Comparison of STR profiles, mitochondrial haplotypes, and haplogroups with data from Eurasian populations indicated affinities with Asian populations and suggested a relative specificity and continuity of part of the Yakut mitochondrial gene pool during the last five centuries. Moreover, our results did not support a Central Asian (with the exception of maternal lineage of West Eurasian origin) or Siberian origin of the maternal lineages of these ancient Yakut subjects, implying an ethnogenesis of the Yakut population probably more complex than previously proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We successfully extracted DNA from a bone sample of a Neolithic skeleton (dated 3,600 ± 60 years BP) excavated in northeastern Yakutia (east Sibe- ria). Ancient DNA was analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by sequencing of the hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. The STR profile, the mitochondrial haplotype, and the haplogroup determined were compared with those of modern Eurasian and Native American populations. The results showed the affinity of this ancient skeleton with both east Siberian/Asian and Native American populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on findings of hookworm infection in corpses found in a frozen burial site in the Altai mountains of Berel, Kazakhstan, in 1999. Two partly decomposed bodies were found in the burial chamber, a man and a woman. The woman was buried several years later. Samples from both bodies were investigated by direct examination and other methods, and found to contain hookworm eggs. The closest zone for hookworm infection is found in the shores of the Aral or Caspian sea, or in Iran. These findings confirm that the Scythe people covered large areas in their nomadic travels.